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There are different instruments and financing options when it comes to raising capital for a business. SAFEs (or Simple Agreement for Future Equity) have been one of the more dominant options since Y Combinator introduced them in 2013. As a founder it is important to know what financing options and instruments are available to your business. Learn more about SAFEs and what they mean when it comes to a fundraise below: Related Resource: All Encompassing Startup Fundraising Guide Note: We suggest consulting a lawyer when determining what financing options are right for your business. What Does SAFE Stand For? SAFE is short for Simple Agreement for Future Equity. As we mentioned above SAFEs were introduced in 2013 by Y Combinator and are here to stay. SAFEs are a type of convertible instrument that converts to equity at a later date. This means a founder is promising equity in their company at a later date when a founder goes out to raise money on a priced round. As Paul Graham put it in the 2013 blog post announcing SAFEs, “A safe is like a convertible note in that the investor buys not stock itself but the right to buy stock in an equity round when it occurs. A safe can have a valuation cap, or be uncapped, just like a note. But what the investor buys is not debt, but something more like a warrant. So there is no need to fix a term or decide on an interest rate. Safes should work just like convertible notes, but with fewer complications.” Related resource: The Startup's Handbook to SAFE: Simplifying Future Equity Agreements The Difference Between SAFE Fundraising and Other Types of Investment Rounds While SAFEs are popular in the market there are other funding options that can be compared to them. Learn more about how SAFEs stack up against other funding instruments below: Related Resource: How to Secure Financing With a Bulletproof Startup Fundraising Strategy Note: We suggest consulting a lawyer when determining what financing options are right for your business. SAFE vs. a Priced Round One alternative to a SAFE is a priced round. As the team at Vincent puts it, “A priced round is an equity-based investment round in which there is a defined pre-money valuation. This means that before completing the investment, the asset has a valuation and, thus, a price-per-share. In Venture Capital, priced rounds are the most common investment structure.” This means that a company has a determined valuation when working through a priced round. As for a SAFE, you are setting a valuation cap to hit in the future. Because of this, SAFEs only require you to negotiate 2 things when raising: How much money the investor will put into the company What is the valuation cap On the flip side, a priced round will require more negotiations as you are determining a valuation. SAFE vs. a Convertible Note Another funding option is a convertible note or convertible debt. As the team at Investopedia writes, “A convertible note is a debt instrument often used by angel or seed investors looking to fund an early-stage startup that has not been valued explicitly. After more information becomes available to establish a reasonable value for the company, convertible note investors can convert the note into equity. Investors have the option to exchange their notes for a predetermined number of shares in the issuing company.” How Do SAFEs Work? Of course, when seeking out to raise using a SAFE you should be able to understand the components of a SAFE. When looking at the document from the team at Y Combinator there are only 5 sections (link to the Y Combinator documents here): Section 1 — Events Equity financing – This explains what happens in the event of equity financing Liquidity event – This explains what happens in a liquidity event Dissolution Liquidation priority – who comes first to be repaid in the listed events above. Section 2 — Definitions Section 2 will help you understand the different language and terms used throughout the document. A few of the key terms from section 2: Section 3 — Company Representations Section 4 — Investor Representations Section 5 — Miscellaneous/Legal Language We encourage founders to check out the document from Y Combinator above as they offer definitions and thorough breakdowns of how SAFEs work. How Do SAFEs Benefit Investors? SAFEs have not picked up in popularity by luck. SAFEs can be a beneficial instrument for both investors and founders. In order to understand if SAFEs are right for your business, you need to understand how they work from the investor’s perspective. A Streamlined Process to Acces Early-Stage Investments Due to the ease of negotiations when it comes to raising via a SAFE, investors are able to see more deals. For example, if an investor is constantly negotiating with potential companies, they will be hindered when it comes to deploying capital in an efficient way. Ability to Convert Investments into Equity Investors also have the ability to convert their investments into equity. Because of the valuation cap and discount rate, investors can convert their equity at better terms than newer investors. How Do SAFEs Benefit Founders? Of course, SAFEs only make sense if they are beneficial to you as a founder as well. As we’ve previously mentioned the main benefit of SAFEs is their simplicity for both founders and investors. However, there are a few other benefits: Enhanced Flexibility With Shareholders When making an investment via a SAFE, investors are not entitled to voting rights and rights that might create interference and additional work on a founder. Faster Access to Financing Speed is crucial when it comes to building and financing your business. SAFEs are a great tool to speed up a financing round and allow founders to get back to what matters the most, building their business. 3 Questions to Ask Before You Raise a SAFE Before going out a raising a SAFE, there are a series of questions you should be able to confidently answer. As we’ve previously mentioned in this post, we suggest consulting a lawyer when determining what financing options are right for your business. 1) Are You Willing to Give Up Equity? First and foremost, you need to ask yourself if you are willing to give up equity. Although you are not giving it up in the immediate, you ultimately are promising to give up equity at a later date. While it can be tricky to determine exactly how much you’ll be giving up, it is important to meet with lawyers and financial advisors to model how much you will be giving up. 2) Are You Considering Raising Money in Your Next Priced Round? Seeing the future, especially as a startup founder, can almost feel impossible. But when it comes to a SAFE you should have an idea of how much you would like to raise in a future priced round. This way you’ll be able to avoid over diluting future investors and keep all parties involved happy. 3) How Will You Track Your SAFE Investments? Of course, you’ll need to a way to track your SAFE and manage your cap table after closing a SAFE. We recommend using a cap table management tool, like the tool from the team at Pulley. Learn More About SAFEs & Fundraising SAFEs are one of the many funding options available to you as a startup founder. No matter what instrument or vehicle you determine is right for your business, you need to have a gameplan in place to find, nurture, and close potential investors. Learn more about how Visible can help you with your next fundraise here.

Developing and learning new skills can benefit individuals at all stages of their careers. Taking the time and initiative to focus on new skills can be pivotal when looking for a new role, a promotion, or taking on new responsibility within an existing role. For leaders, developing specific leadership skills is critical to succeeding in a leadership role. While some people are born with more natural leadership skills than others, dubbed “natural leaders”, many qualities of highly effective leaders can be learned and practiced. Leadership skills, unlike the hard skills that are needed within most job skills, extend beyond that. Leadership skills are soft skills that aren’t as easy to quantify and develop in a measurable way. Most career paths see folks that develop and consistently practice and refine their soft skills rise the ranks and jump into leadership roles. If leadership is something you aspire to or is something you’re stepping into now, focusing on developing leadership skills should become a part of your weekly routine and habits. At Visible, we work with a fair number of leaders in the startup and venture capital space. Based on our insights, we’ve compiled an overview of top resources to develop your leadership skills, and what those specific skills are as well as some key methods for developing them. Key Skills for Startup Leaders There is no shortage of ideas on what skills are critical for leaders to develop. Thinking about the specific leadership skills that are critical for startup leaders, a few come to mind. While many skills are important for startup leaders to develop, for this specific guide we’re going to focus on 5 specific skills that are key. The five areas of skills that are crucial for startup leaders to master include communication, open-mindedness, critical thinking, trust, and conflict resolution. Communication Skills Leadership communication spans both internal communications as well as external. Additionally, leadership communication is way beyond the verbal. The non-verbal signals from a leader can be almost more impactful than the verbal. At the core, leadership communication is a philosophy, a vision that leaders should use as a compass that guides their entire leadership style. Strong communication skills allow a leader to articulate new ideas, inspire their teams, share positive and negative information with broader teams, investors, and customers in a way that keeps things moving forward. Strong communication skills can make or break whether a leader inspires folks to action. A leader with bad communication skills can struggle to get anyone to actually follow. Master communication is a key leadership skill for startup founders to master early so they can continuously articulate their vision, inspire their teams, and share ideas in a way that grows the business up and to the right. Open-Mindedness As a leader, it’s almost natural to adopt the mindset that your decisions are the ones to be followed and guide the way. While you were put into a leadership position possibly to lead the way, the best leaders demonstrate the leadership skill of open-mindedness. Smart leaders hire even smarter people to join their teams. Developing a mindset to accept new ideas, create an open environment where ideas can be shared, and showcasing a desire to learn and change towards what’s best even if it means it wasn’t your idea are critical leadership skills. Open-mindedness in startups is especially critical because testing, ideation, and sprinting to new outcomes and test new ideas can make or break a business. YOu only have as much time as capital in the bank so a willingness to be open and pivot quickly, and foster an open-minded culture, is crucial. Critical Thinking In a startup, especially one where you are a founder along with holding an executive leadership role, emotions are running high. The funding time clock is ticking and you have a very limited runway to produce major results and keep the business alive. Due to these high-pressure circumstances, it is extremely important for startup leaders to develop the leadership skill of critical thinking. By informing your thinking with facts first, stepping back to analyze, and making a judgment and decisions from there, you will avoid making emotional decisions that may feel right in the short term, but in the long term aren’t smart business decisions. Thinking critically about your business and leadership decisions as they come allows you to base decisions in reality and in a way that makes sense to all involved instead of taking the emotional, passionate, and probably biased view you might have as a leader with a heavy stake in the success of the business. Trust All around, trust can build up or totally destroy a business, especially a startup. As a leadership skill, trust needs to be developed in a number of ways. Trust needs to be developed in a way so that your employees trust you as a leader. It also needs to be established in the way the organization runs, so peers and teams have trust in each other. That type of organizational development and trust starts with the leadership. As a leader, developing a leadership style that embodies trust and sets the standard of trust in your team to get things done will affect overall organizational success and functionality. Conflict Resolution In any organization, conflict arises. In startups, that conflict can sometimes feel magnified, especially when teams are small and there is pressure to move fast. As a leader, developing strong conflict resolution tactics and skills is absolutely essential. Learning to resolve conflicts in a way that embodies critical thinking and trust as well as understanding and empathy will push the outcomes of conflict in a positive direction and allow your team to build on and grow from conflicts together, rather than conflicts tearing the team apart. 10 Resources to Develop Your Leadership Skills Now that we’ve outlined the key leadership skills we believe are most imperative for startup leaders to focus on right now, we wanted to pull together a few resources to get you started. You’ll notice there is a book recommendation in almost every category. Reading continues to be one of the most powerful ways leaders can sharpen their skills and develop their minds. Outside of our recommendations below, check out our post on The 23 Best Books for Founders. Communication Skills Visible’s 7 Leadership Communication Principles of Successful Startups Based on our observations working with VCs and startup founders, we put together a straightforward guide on leadership communication. These 7 principles are actionable and a good starting point for developing this specific soft skill. Radical Candor by Kim Scott This book outlines a possible leadership philosophy around communication, focused on caring personally while challenging directly. This approach is a good one to learn and adapt in your organization, playing into the authenticity of good communication while still learning to deliver the information, feedback, and decisions in a way that is clear and to the point as a leader should. Practicing Radical Candor at your startup from the beginning is a great way to develop strong communications skills. Open-Mindedness Sigma Assessment Systems Guide to Open-Mindedness in Leaders SIGMA is a consulting, leadership development, and talent assessment group. Their guide to open-mindedness for leaders provides a number of practical articles, techniques, and tangible steps that one can take to move towards developing a more open mind as a leader. Specific plays such as learning to practice gratitude and ask for feedback are explored. Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just 5 Days Developing an open-minded approach to new ideas is critical in a startup. However, time is money, so testing new ideas is important to do before executing and this testing should be done quickly. Sprint provides an easy framework to solve problems and run new ideas through a testing structure to determine if they are worth spending more time on. Implementing Sprint methodology into your organization can help build a culture of open-mindedness and testing and show that you as a leader are open to new ideas and visions. Critical Thinking Entrepreneur’s 16 Characteristics of Critical Thinkers Critical Thinking has its own soft and hard skills that need work to build up the ultimate skill of critical thinking. In this list, explore some of the characteristics that serve as building blocks to developing a critical thinking muscle. Think Big, Act Small by Jason Jennings A great read for general best-practices when building a business, this book dives into the type of soft-skills that go into big thinking but the fact-based, analytical mind needed to process that big thinking and make small, sustainable changes for the business. Trust The Predictive Index Assessment Building trust in an organization and developing a muscle for trust as a leader starts with understanding what makes a good team and who you are hiring to do great work. Taking the PI assessment or even working it into your interview process is a great way to build trust in the hires your making early, take a step back to understand your own strengths and others strengths, and pair folks to roles and tasks that best suit them, knowing the best people are in place to get the job done. It can also be a way to understand the why behind your own decisions as well as your teams, breaking down misconceptions and building up trust too. Visible’s Guide to Building Organizational Alignment Plain and simple, trust affects alignment in an organization. A lack of trust can completely change the alignment and cohesiveness across an organization. We put together our own guide to help with building organizational alignment, critical for building trust. Conflict Resolution The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle Diving into some of the largest, most well-known organizations like Pixar and the Navy’s SEAL Team Six, Coyle breaks down what makes these organizations tick and how leaders pushed through to resolve these issues. Learning from success stories is a great way to develop conflict resolution skills in your own organization. Cornell Online’s Conflict Resolution Certificate To really master something as crucial as conflict resolution, investing in a more formal educational approach could be a route to take. Cornell offers a certificate in the art and science of conflict resolution that can be done entirely online. Visible for Leadership Interested in learning more about how Visible can improve your team’s communication around updates and tracking, foster trust in your organization, and help you capture data to make critical decisions? Learn more here. Related Resource: Startup Mentoring: The Benefits of a Mentor and How to Find One

What does Leadership Communication really mean? Communication is critical for success in any organization. More important than just blanket, inter-organizational, and peer-to-peer communication is leadership communication. Top-down communication from the executives within a company can make or break an organization. One of the most defining characteristics of a great leader is their communication. In today’s digital-heavy world, strong leadership communication must span multiple channels that are rapidly changing and expanding. Mastering leadership communication, across all viable channels, is critical for the success of your team and your business, especially as a new startup. At the core, leadership communication is a philosophy, a vision that leaders should use as a compass that guides their entire leadership style. But what does that really mean? Leadership communication is really any verbal or non-verbal message that a person in authority at your company shares with the team or representing the organization. Leadership communication spans both internal communications as well as external. Additionally, leadership communication is way beyond the verbal. The non-verbal signals from a leader can be almost more impactful than the verbal. In a breakdown from Psychology Today, non-verbal body language contributed to 55% of the total interpretation of interpersonal communication. Additionally, 38% was attributed to voice and tone leaving only 7% to the words actually spoken – meaning for leaders especially, it’s less about what you say but rather how you deliver that message. Another element of the non-verbal part of communication that can make or break a leader’s communication is listening. How a leader reacts to and adapts their communication after listening to feedback or ideas from their team plays into how their communication messages are delivered. An active listener, meaning someone who is genuinely engaged while hearing what another has to say, and someone who adjusts their message based on listening to feedback or shares their openness to new ideas with their tone and body language is going to exude stronger leadership skills than someone who is closed off and doesn’t’ truly listen to their team. Leadership communication is truly a philosophy that each leader develops because it guides the way that they are viewed by those in their organization and the way that their companies’ messaging and growth evolves. For startups, understanding what good leadership communication can look like and do from your business from the very beginning is crucial. Why Leadership Communication is so important in 2021 There are a lot of indicators that 2021 will be a much better year collectively than 2020, but many of the changes to work-life and organizational operation and communication that occurred in 2020 are still very much prevalent in 2021 and here to stay. Many organizations and leaders have completely reorganized the way they do work and the way they communicate all across their organization. The Remote Work Shift While remote work has been fairly common in the software industry, for many organizations remote work was unheard of prior to the pandemic. However, more organizations than ever are embracing it. First out of necessity, but now many organizations are offering at least some option of work from home or remote-first work options to employers indefinitely. It is now more common to hear of employees starting new jobs totally remote, working 9+ months in a new role without ever meeting any co-workers or managers in person. This shift to remote-first work is not going away. While offices will reopen and some companies will op to go back into their spaces in-person at least part of the time, large tech leaders like Slack building a virtual office or Twitter allowing employees to work from home forever are paving the way for a continued digital-first future of work. For startups founded in 2020 and 2021 so far, more than likely you have been completely remote from inception to launch. There are benefits of the shift to remote work, especially for startups. Big savings on rental costs for office space are a big plus. Additionally, startups’ access to top talent isn’t geographically limited with a remote-first approach. However, with everything being remote-first in a startup environment where everything is so new and evolving so fast, effective leadership communication is harder than ever yet more important for startups to make it into the 5% success rate. Communication Channels and Asynchronous Work In 2021, many companies have been founded completely remote or now possess a large portion of their workforce only familiar with a digital experience of their company values, culture, peers, and leaders. That being said, leadership communication channels are more important than ever. With a spread-out, sometimes global workforce. Most work in startups is happening asynchronously now. That means that your important leadership message may not reach everyone at the same time. Choosing to utilize different communication channels for different types of communication is key for leaders to successfully execute positive leadership communication. Three common communication channels: Zoom, Slack, and email. Knowing how to best leverage these primary channels to reach out to your employees across multiple time zones or working different schedules is critical. Reserving company-wide announcements for Zoom all-hands calls or company-wide emails can get specific messages across clearer than quick notes in Slack. Knowing when and where to say what is key. Without the ability to turn to the person next to you, raise hands and ask a question real-time, or schedule a meeting in-person with management after big news is shared – leaders need to take into account the why behind the messages they are delivering and think through all the outcomes of their delivery. Focusing on clear messaging and leveraging the right channels to make it most effective is crucial. Setting up the right channels for feedback and response is also important so that as leadership communications go out, every employee has an easy and equitable way to respond and react. How to Improve Leadership Communication in 2021 Knowing leadership communication is more important than ever in 2021. It’s critical for overall organizational alignment. There are a few quick ways you can improve your startup’s leadership communication right away. Channel Selection Standardize the way your entire organization is communicating. It may seem like overkill, but starting with clear guidelines and purpose for each communication channel in your org is critical to keep good leadership communication (and general communication) going as you scale. Do an internal audit of your current communication tools. If there are duplicates in your stack, work with managers to figure out what the critical channels are. From there, identify and document the purpose of each channel. For example, slack for quick questions and timely updates or real-time conversations, email for big announcements or questions that take more than 5 minutes to formulate a response, and zoom for company-wide news, team brainstorming, and feedback on new ideas. A Additionally, it can be helpful to document best practices for each channel such as threads in slack or the use of team-wide email aliases, and share this documentation as part of your onboarding process, standardizing communication expectations at all levels from day-1. Team-Wide Learning While standardizing the communication channels and best practices are critical boundaries to set, your team members will still all fundamentally have different communication styles and practices. Investing in a self-assessment like the Predictive Index test can be helpful in understanding how each team member prefers to give and receive feedback, their ideal work style, and more. Vowing to invest in this type of learning as a leader and then encouraging managers to adjust their leadership communication style to what best fits their team members’ strengths can be a great way to improve not only leadership communication but general company communication as well. Ask for Feedback As simple as this sounds, it’s rare that organizations are asking for feedback as often as they could. Depending on the size and culture of your company, hosting a forum on the company and specifically leadership communication either within a team meeting or through anonymous surveys can be a great first step in improving leadership communication. Knowing what specifically your employees like and dislike about the way they are currently being communicated to is a great first step to point the needle in the right direction. 7 Principles for Effective Leadership Communication While there is a lot that can be done tactically for leaders to improve their leadership communication, at the end of the day effective leadership communication is a constant, ever-evolving idea. Focusing on a few guiding principles to use as the process and idea of leadership communication evolves for you and your organization is a great way to ground your leadership communication in a fundamental philosophy and vision. We’ve put together 10 principles we believe can help guide effective leadership communication. Be Authentic Fakeness is easy to spot. Being your true, authentic self as a leader will make your communication better overall. Sharing moments that are tough for you or moments of pure joy for the company with the entire company are easy ways to showcase your authentic self, building more trust in you across your team. Knowing that your investment in the startup is human and has variety will allow your team to fully buy into the vision and bring their full selves to work every day, improving culture, communication, and teamwork. Get Out of Your Silo It’s easy to stay heads-down in your own company and executive team. Get out of the silo of your own org and learn from others. Spending time with fellow startup founders or reading about various leadership and communication styles are easy ways to continuously assess and evolve your own leadership communication based on industry best practices or other successful organizations and leaders. Consider the Timing Timing is everything. Considering the timing of each and every message or communication you share with your team (or externally representing your company) is critical. A poorly timed announcement or press release can make or break the success of a big announcement or confuse the team internally. Taking timing into consideration even for the seeming simplest messages is a big game-changer for leadership communication. Think about Equality and Equity Along with timing, understanding if your leadership communication is both equal and equitable is important. If the timing or format of your communication is more accessible for certain groups of your company, rethink how you can change your channel or delivery to better reach all folks equally and when all have a fair opportunity to digest and respond. Beyond timing, equality and equity can come in with communication channel and what’s most accessible to different roles in your company, as well as expectations for response as some folks may have outside priorities like parenting that keep them to strict workloads and deadlines. Stop and Listen Even if you feel as though you’ve mastered the art of leadership communication, always take time to stop and listen. Ask for feedback, get a pulse on what your company is feeling about your leadership communication style. Pause and give yourself time to digest feedback or company talk and learn from there. Take Communication Seriously If your company is doing well, it can be easy to get rather lax in your communication style or forget why good leadership communication is so important. However, it’s critical to always take communication seriously as a leader. When a crisis or big change does arise, you’ll be ready to communicate about it effectively if you consistently take your leadership communication seriously. Invest in Yourself Don’t forget that as a leader, you cannot effectively communicate and make positive decisions for your team if you aren’t investing in and taking care of yourself outside of the 9-5. Sleep is a simple, yet critical part of self-care that is often the first to be neglected by leaders, even though it’s proven to make you a better one. Setting boundaries for yourself and taking breaks will allow you to come back into your work with a clearer head and guide you to make the best possible decisions and communication possible. Poor Leadership Communication Can Hurt It’s absolutely crucial to master strong, positive leadership communication because poor leadership communication can be detrimental to your organization. According to Forbes, poor communication can affect businesses by derailing focus, misaligning the team on the true purpose of the org, prompt a lack of motivation and inspiration, and dropping overall company morale. For leaders specifically, poor leadership communication can diminish credibility. Implementing our practical actions, as well as the 7 guiding principles for leadership communication, are great steps to implementing excellent leadership communication at your startup from day 1. Visible for Leadership Communication Interested in learning more about how Visible can improve your team’s communication around updates and tracking? Check out how we can support your startup as your investor relationship hub.

Fundraising is a full-time job for startups. It’s a process most founders are running 24/7/365. The fundraising lifecycle typically has two parts: Actively Raising: Founders are actively raising new capital for their business. Hopefully, they are using a process to build momentum (check out this First Round article for great tips). Passively Fundraising: This is when founders are building relationships with future, upstream investors that might be a good fit for future funding events. The Fundraising Process We believe if founders run a great process when they are actively raising and build rapport with potential investors when they are passively raising they will raise faster, with better terms, and get back to building their business. Over the last year, we’ve built and improved (with features like custom properties, update sends to potential investors, and Visible Connect) our Fundraising CRM with features to make a founder’s next raise as efficient as possible. We are thrilled to announce our Zapier + Fundraising CRM integration. The integration will allow founders to fit fundraising into their daily workflow by using Zapier triggers to automatically add potential investors to their Visible Fundraising CRM. Visible + Zapier Examples Some examples of our favorite Zaps to get you started: Send email to a potential investor –> Add to Visible Pipeline Zapier Google Chrome Extension –> Add to Visible Pipeline Slack message –> Add to Visible Pipeline and more Give Visible + Zapier a Free Try Here are some templates to help get you started: To learn more about getting your Zapier connection setup with our Fundraising CRM, check out this post. If you have a Zap you’re using to automate your fundraise, we’d love to hear about it. Send a message to marketing at visible dot vc.

Raise capital, update investors and engage your team from a single platform. Try Visible free for 14 days. Team-building is a common activity in elementary school, college orientation, and summer camps…and oh yeah, startups! Not just for kids or young adults, startups greatly benefit and thrive when their teams participate in team-building activities. At its core, team building seems easy enough – an activity aimed at bringing a group of co-workers together to align around a common goal, strength, or activity resulting in a closer bond. However, in practice, it can be a lot harder to achieve this desired outcome well. Startup team-building activities, whether more team bonding focused or more team learning focused, are critical for team members to build camaraderie and company culture as well as inspire more creative thinking and long-term business success. Beyond building company culture and inspiring long-term positive business effects like more creative thinking, team building is a great reason to bring the entire team to get together. According to Forbes, team building is often the most important investment successful companies make for their business. It builds trust, alleviates conflict, encourages communication, and increases collaboration. Finding opportunities to consistently bake team building into your startup’s culture is critical for building a positive, happy work environment. Providing team building too infrequently or one-off, and without leadership buy-in, can come off corny or fake and the impact won’t occur. Ultimately, team building at a growing startup is an investment. It takes time, which often can be seen as the most precious commodity when hitting increasingly large and daunting revenue goals and product launches. It also might take financial resources. However, when done correctly and consistently, the price of onboarding is much less than the price of poor company culture, uninspired team, and turnover. Happiness and Learning are extremely connected. Trying new things with your co-workers (via team building) is a great way to promote positive energy among employees. Pushing your team outside of their comfort zones in a fun way is a great way to get your team connected. The team at Visible has been 100% remote since day one, however, we’ve always found time for team building. Now that the majority of startups are experiencing remote-work life or even founding from the ground up in this totally remote world, we’ve curated a list of startup team building activities for teams to leverage the benefits of team building remote or in-person. Why remote team building is important The most successful and impactful team-building events are those that don’t feel “corporate” or like a workday in the office at all. Activities that focus on incorporating leadership lessons or practical takeaways are less powerful. Spending time together, sharing an experience or working towards a common goal allows bonding to happen more organically and far more effectively. Team building can come in many shapes and forms. Building camaraderie is beyond icebreakers and scavenger hunts. Team building, especially for remote teams, can come in many different forms and categories. Team building exercises are important to incorporate for employee engagement, onboarding, company strategic growth, and company culture. Related Reading: How To Manage Remote Teams: 16 Tips From a Remote Startup Employee Engagement The key to ensuring strong retention and a lasting positive environment for teams is investing in strong employee engagement team building. Having engaged, sharing, involved employees is critical for retention. Every company wants to attract and keep the top talent, but in today’s working world, especially in the fast-paced startup landscape, most employees quickly get bored or stagnant with their work, lose inspiration and start hunting for something new right around the 2-year mark. Quick turnover like this, especially when it’s wide-spread and commonplace at your startup, drains companies financially and creatively, and culturally. On average, employee turnover can cost a company 6-9 months of that role’s salary, all the way up to 200%+ salary for top executives in the c-suite. Because of the literal cost of bad retention, employee engagement is critical for a number of reasons. HR professionals believe team building can be incorporated into a company’s culture for employee engagement in a variety of ways to make it easy for employees to love coming to work and continuously focus on enjoyable work. Employee engagement can be inspired by providing more ways for your team to have fun. Outside of team-building activities, investing in an employee experience platform to track the metrics behind employee engagement. Setting up tools for easy peer-to-peer praise is also a great way for teams to build each other up internally (and even remotely). Finally, another good way to make sure employees are engaged and don’t get bored in their roles is to make promotion paths for growth extremely clear and publicly available. Employee Onboarding Team-building can be incorporated starting on day one. Team building to promote employee engagement and company culture starts during the recruitment and interview process but employee onboarding can make or break a candidate’s experience of the company culture because it sets the bar and expectation. Onboarding can sometimes feel overwhelming and dry for employees. There is a very school-like feel with all the information that must be presented to employees as part of the onboarding process. It’s important to balance the necessary information that needs to be shared at onboarding with a fun, relaxed, and inclusive onboarding environment. Providing new employees with an immersive onboarding experience not only gives them the critical knowledge they need in a short period of time, but also creates a bonding experience with other new hires. An onboarding experience focused on team bonding can also help ease and speed up the transition from candidates to colleagues, and provide new team members with a head start as they begin to work alongside existing employees. Ultimately, team-building-centric employee onboarding can build camaraderie and company culture. Company Strategic Growth As mentioned before, team bonding comes at a cost to the company. A cost of time and money for employees. But, as stated, the cost of poor company culture and employee turnover, can be financially damaging to a company and worse-so, culturally damning for a company as well. Team building is critical for unlocking the characteristics needed to successfully scale a fast-growing startup. When team members are bonded, they have a higher level of trust. Trust is key to a space of sharing and honesty for new ideas and constructive feedback for growth. Some other benefits of team building for startups’ strategic growth include inspiring more creativity, creating an environment of approachability, identifying new and upcoming leaders, and uncovering new strengths across the team. Team building can break the monotony of the typical grind and day-to-day for startup teams. A break in routine and pushing employees to use their brains in a different way with their teammates can leave them feeling refreshed and ready to bring new ideas to the table and be more creative in their day-to-day. Along with the trust foraged by team building, somewhat goofy or non-typical team building activities where leaders and management show vulnerability and participation can make the entire team dynamic and leadership more approachable, a positive aspect of strong startup culture. Many team-building activities require one or more participants to take the lead or volunteer to try something new first. Team building is a fresh way to identify future leadership potential across the company by providing new outlets for folks at all levels to shine and share their strengths. By pushing everyone outside of their comfort zone in more fun, creative team-building environment, you may unlock new strengths that will ultimately help the team in future work-centric projects and decisions. By allowing folks to showcase their strengths outside of their typical 9-5 tasks, you may inspire managers to re-delegate work or reconsider how they manage certain folks on the team, ultimately leading to more inclusive and positive company culture. Startup Company Culture Active and consistent employee engagement, a positive and interactive employee onboarding experience, and positive strategic company growth are all components that makeup company culture. Ultimately, company culture comes down to how enjoyable, safe, and inclusive a company environment is for all employees. A hostile, back-stabbing, gossipy, or over-worked culture is going to negatively impact the other three categories listed above – and will result in a less successful company than what could be by focusing on building positive company culture through investment in team building. As more and more companies make the decision to stay remote-first or continue allowing a large portion of their workforce to stay remote-first in the future, company culture is more important than ever. A major aspect of company-culture that can be lost while folks are remote-first and primarily working over tools like Slack and Zoom is the chance to mix and mingle with other departments and teams. According to a study shared by the people-management software company Lattice, a 2017 Harvard Business Review study revealed that remote workers often left out, and the study’s authors stressed the importance of taking “extra measures to build trust and connection with colleagues” in a remote work environment. Team building is a great way to solve this problem by providing fun, low-stress options for teams to collaborate and get to know folks virtually that they would normally meet in the kitchen or at happy hour. So what’s next? As a company that has always existed remote-first, we want to provide you with a comprehensive list of team-building ideas that fall into these 4 buckets. We present to you: 34 Remote Teambuilding Activities Icebreakers Scavenger Hunt A scavenger hunt around your office or a local area. When doing this remote you can also make it for individuals to find things in their own home or office. Company Cribs Host a happy hour where folks can optionally show off their homes to the team and answer questions about hobbies or cool art on display. Pet Party Invite dogs to the office one day a month or to a zoom happy hour – nothing breaks the ice like a cute puppy! Custom Emojis Encourage employees to create custom emojis in Slack and fill out their profiles with fun information and stories. The Donut App Donut is a Slack App this randomly pairs folks across teams for coffee chats every week. Employee Engagement Activities #Praise Channel Create a #Praise channel in Slack to encourage folks to shoutout their teammates. Swag Rewards Provide company-wide swag rewards for hitting OKRs. Rituals Create rituals for activities such as closed deals (a bell ring) or new product launches. (champagne anyone?) Interest Slack Channels Slack channels for everything – interest groups, gratitude and positive vibes, even music or funny videos. ERGs Establish employee interest groups so all employees have a safe space at work. This might include a women’s ERG, an LGBTQ+ ERG, or a black employee’s ERG. Weekly Thanks Similar to the #Praise channel, use “Weekly Thanks” on a team call to allow employees to shout out a fellow team member that went above and beyond the previous week. Employee Onboarding Activities LinkedIn Scavenger Hunt Have new hires find the employee that matches with a list of fun facts or past experiences as a way to get to know folks across the company. #Welcome Channel Slack Introductions in a #Welcome Channel that includes a unique fun fact! Lunch with the Founders This is a great way for new higher classes to understand and feel passionate about the mission of your startup from the get-go. Onboarding Trivia Make those boring security and employee handbook meetings more interesting and interactive! New Hire Buddy’s Pair a veteran on a team with a new hire for the first 2 weeks and give the veteran employee specific questions and prompts to check-in and provide advice and help as the new employee ramps. Leadership and Strategic Growth Activities Personality Test Have teams take a personality test such as Insights, Predictive Index, or Meyers Briggs and bring in a facilitator to discuss the results and showcase how everyone’s personalities align on the team. Diversity and Inclusion Presentations Bring in relevant speakers for monthly deep-dives or encourage internal leadership to present on important cultural topics for the team. Ask Me Anything Allow employees and teams to have time with executives and leaders to ask them anything. This can cover things outside of work too! MasterClass Sessions Allow teammembers to present master classes to their peers. These can be things they learned at work or a hobby outside of work. At Visible, we use “Show and Tells” every Thursday to let a teammember share something they’ve recently learned. Lego “Team Building” Send everyone a custom lego kit and let folks tinker with it while listening to an all-hands or long company call, allows them to do something with their hands and still stay engaged with the content. Sales Team Building Pitch Competition Newbies and veterans get the opportunity to practice new pitches for fun prizes. Pitch your own product or have them come up with something entirely new! “BDR for a Day” An opportunity for Sr. sales leaders and AEs to come together and work with the BDRs to book outbound meetings for an afternoon. Meme Competition Everyone presents a meme that describes something relatable to sellers, everyone votes on the best. Marketing Team Building Customer Q&A Bring a top customer on for a panel with your team to better understand your customers and tailor your message. Team Hack Encourage each team member to bring 4 problems they are working through to the table and collaborate together with breakout discussions. Events Send a team to a virtual or IRL conference and have them present to the company a quick overview of what they learned. Tweet Writing Competition Challenge marketers to creatively pitch a new product, campaign or initiative in *280 characters or less. Emojis encouraged. Company Culture Activities Zoom Games There are countless games that can be played over Zoom. A few of our favorites at Visible are JackboxTV, Draw Battle, and Codenames. “Chopped” Competition Pick 3 office snacks and have teams compete with the best recipes. Tik Tok Competition Pick a famous Tik Tok and see what team members can do it best. Let the entry-level Gen Z kids show everyone how it’s done. Virtual Cocktail Class Many local distilleries and brands have started offering virtual cocktail classes. Can also be done as a mocktail class. Cooking class Same as the cocktail class, just as delicious. Virtual Magic Show So bad it’s good! Zoom Concerts Live-stream a band or singer and have them take requests via the chat. Or step it up and have a band live stream a concert using Mandolin. Themed Team Meetings Quick ideas include beach, safari, sports, and throwback Thursday! Movie Night Utilize an app like Netflix party to stream and chat about a new documentary and host a “book club” style discussion about the film the next day. Company Activity Challenge Encourage folks to download an app like MoveSpring and set up a team step challenge, leaders across the company or different offices win prizes! The best part about this list? It’s growing every day. Have a great team-building idea that worked for your growing startup? Share it here: matt@visible.vc or @VisibleVC on Twitter. Team Building Resources We tapped into these awesome resources to build out this list. Along with ideas, feel free to reach out with helpful resources or research that backs up the benefits of team building for growing startup teams. Team Building Research Forbes: Why Team Building is the Most Important Investment You Will Make SHRM: Understanding and Developing Organizational Culture Harvard Business Review: A Study of 1100 Employees Found Remote Workers Feel Shunned and Left Out Small Business Chronicle: Benefits of Team Building in a Corporate Setting Job Monkey: 19 Important Benefits of Team Building at Work Company Culture Forbes: Why Corporate Culture is Becoming Even More Important Indeed: 8 Reasons Why Organizational Culture is Important LinkedIn: Why Company Culture is So Important to Business Success Team Building Ideas Snack Nation: Employee Engagement Ideas Lever: 7 Essentials of Successful Onboarding Team Activities HR Morning: Team Building Activities Lattice: 5 Creative Ways to Appreciate Employees Using Technology Lattice: 10 Creative Team Building Activities for Remote Teams Airbnb Experiences – Hub of virtual classes and experiences from around the world! To learn more about scaling and hiring top talent at your startup, check out our ultimate guide to startup culture here.

Being a startup founder and CEO is difficult. CEOs of large corporations are oftentimes groomed over the course of years for the position. There is no playbook for startup founders. Most first-time founders are learning on the fly and are responsible for making just about every decision for their company. As a startup founder, there is no one better to learn from than the person who has been there before. Luckily, there are thousands of founders, investors, and operators who have been there before to share their learnings. Related Reading: Business Startup Advice: 15 Helpful Tips for Startup Growth 23 Books For Startup Founders Check out our favorite books for startup founders below (broken down by subject). Operations When it comes to operating a startup, there is no better person to learn from than a founder or operator who has been there before. Check out our favorite books for operating and scaling a startup below: The Lean Startup by Eric Ries Before writing The Lean Startup, Eric co-founder IMVU where they efficiently built a minimum viable product in 6 months. “The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively. Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on “validated learning,” rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want. It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute.” The Startup Playbook by Rajat Bhargava & Will Herman Rajat Bhargave and Will Herman both have careers founding and leading startups. As the authors put it, “The Startup Playbook is full of our advice, guidance, do’s, and don’ts from our years of experience as founders many times. We want to share our hard-earned knowledge with you to make success easier for you to achieve.” Zero to One by Peter Thiel & Blake Masters Peter Thiel co-founded PayPal, Palantir, and Founders Fund. It is safe to say that he knows what it takes to innovate and invent. “Zero to One presents at once an optimistic view of the future of progress in America and a new way of thinking about innovation: it starts by learning to ask the questions that lead you to find value in unexpected places.” Check out why Su Sanni, Founder of Dollaride, has found Zero to One to be the book that has helped him most during his time as a founder below: Measure What Matters by John Doerr John Doerr has been a venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins since the 1980s. He has invested in companies like Compaq, Amazon, and Google. “In Measure What Matters, Doerr shares a broad range of first-person, behind-the-scenes case studies, with narrators including Bono and Bill Gates, to demonstrate the focus, agility, and explosive growth that OKRs have spurred at so many great organizations.” Leadership & Management Startups are in constant competition for 2 resources: capital and talent. A founder or CEOs ability to lead and manage their team is vital to a startup’s ability to attract and retain top talent. Check out our favorite books to help founders improve their leadership skills below: Startup CEO by Matt Blumberg Matt Blumberg is the CEO of Bolster (and former CEO of ReturnPath). Being a startup CEO, especially for the first time, is difficult. There is no playbook or training to become a startup CEO like there is for large corporations. In Startup CEO, Matt draws on his own experience to cover what he has learned in everything from hiring to company strategy. The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz Ben Horowitz started his career as a founder but is most famous for his role at Andreessen Horowitz. In The Hard Things About Hard Things, Ben is honest about the difficulties that come with founding and running a successful company. He shares “the insights he’s gained developing, managing, selling, buying, investing in, and supervising technology companies.” The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey Stephen Covey has a successful career as a business and self-help author. Stephen studies highly successful people and lays out the 7 habits that help individuals move from dependence to independence. The 7 habits are: Be proactive Begin with the end in mind First things first Think win-win Seek first to understand, then to be understood Synergize Sharpen the Saw; Growth The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho As put by in the infamous book’s reviews, “Paulo Coelho’s masterpiece tells the mystical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure. His quest will lead him to riches far different—and far more satisfying—than he ever imagined. Santiago’s journey teaches us about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, of recognizing opportunity and learning to read the omens strewn along life’s path, and, most importantly, to follow our dreams.” Check out why Aishetu Dozie, Founder of Bossy Beauty, has leaned on The Alchemist for both business and life below: Company Culture Building a strong culture oftentimes starts with the founders and leaders. The books below offer advice to founders looking to create and maintain a culture that will attract top talent. The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle Daniel Coyle is a NY Times Bestselling author. “In The Culture Code, Daniel Coyle goes inside some of the world’s most successful organizations—including Pixar, the San Antonio Spurs, and U.S. Navy’s SEAL Team Six—and reveals what makes them tick.” Radical Candor by Kim Scott Kim Scott has spent her career as a CEO coach at some of the most storied startups of today (before that she spent time at Apple, YouTube, and Google). Kim shares her three principles that she believes make up a great boss. “Radical Candor offers a guide to those bewildered or exhausted by management, written for bosses and those who manage bosses. Taken from years of the author’s experience, and distilled clearly giving actionable lessons to the reader; it shows managers how to be successful while retaining their humanity, finding meaning in their job, and creating an environment where people both love their work and their colleagues.” Do Better Work by Max Yoder Max Yoder is the CEO and Founder of Lessonly. As we wrote in a separate blog post, “Do Better Work is a rare book that falls in both categories. In it, author Max Yoder weaves the philosophical and the practical together, seamlessly and to great effect. The result is a leadership book that is not only helpful, but delightful and surprising to read—one where step-by-step instructions for, say, sharing work before you’re ready or achieving clarity, fit neatly alongside the lessons we can learn from philosopher J. Krishnamurti or the vulnerability of superheroes.” Venture Capital & Fundraising Raising venture capital is a difficult job for a startup founder. At Visible, we like to compare fundraising to a process that oftentimes mimics a traditional B2B sales process. To learn more about the process and thought process behind a venture fundraise, check out the books below: Secrets of Sand Hill Road by Scott Kupor Scott Kuport is the Managing Director of Andresseen Horowitz, the infamous venture fund. In Secrets of Sand Hill Road, Scott breaks down the fundamentals of venture capital to help explain how they make decisions. Founders can use this information to better their odds of raising capital and better their relationships with venture capitalists. (You can read more about Secrets of Sand Hill Road in our post, “Understanding Power Law Curves to Better Your Chances of Raising Venture Capital”) Venture Deals by Brad Feld Brad Feld is the Managing Director of Foundry Group (and Co-founder of Techstars). During his career it is safe to say that Brad Feld has seen the intricacies of a venture fundraise. “Venture Deals shows fledgling entrepreneurs the inner-workings of the VC process, from the venture capital term sheet and effective negotiating strategies to the initial seed and the later stages of development.” Crack the Funding Code by Judy Robinett Judy Robinett has a career full of leading private and public companies and working with venture firms. “Crack the Funding Code will show readers how to find the money, create pitches that attract investors, and then structure fair, ethical deals that will bring them new sources of outside capital and invaluable professional advice.” Sales & Marketing Being able to market and sell a product is essential to startup success. To help founders sharpen their selling skills, we’ve shared our favorite books below: Start with Why by Simon Sinek The infamous TED Talk, How Great Leaders Inspire Action, by Simon Sinek discusses why leaders need to “start with why.” Since the original TED Talk, Simon has expanded on the idea and turned it into a bestselling book. Start with Why “shows that the leaders who’ve had the greatest influence in the world all think, act, and communicate the same way.” Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross Aaron was responsible for creating an outbound sales process that helped Salesforce add $100M in recurring revenue in the early 2000s. After his time at Salesforce, Aaron published Predictable Revenue to help leaders build a “sales machine.” As described by Aaron, “This is NOT another book about how to cold call or close deals. This is an entirely new kind of sales bible for CEOs, entrepreneurs and sales VPs to help you build a sales machine. What does it take for your sales team to generate as many highly-qualified new leads as you want, create predictable revenue, and meet your financial goals without your constant focus and attention? ” Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff Oren Kleff is the Managing Director of Intersection Capital. Pitch Anything draws on Oren’s experience raising capital and pitching teams during his career. “According to Klaff, creating and presenting a great pitch isn’t an art it’s a simple science. Applying the latest findings in the field of neuroeconomics, while sharing eye opening stories of his method in action, Klaff describes how the brain makes decisions and responds to pitches. With this information, you’ll remain in complete control of every stage of the pitch process.” Reality Check by Guy Kawasaki Guy Kawasaki is best known for marketing the original Macintosh at Apple in 1984 and coining “evangelism marketing.” “Reality Check is Kawasaki’s all-in-one guide for starting and operating great organizations-ones that stand the test of time and ignore any passing fads in business theory. This indispensable volume collects, updates, and expands the best entries from his popular blog and features his inimitable take on everything from effective e-mailing to sucking up to preventing bozo explosions.” Ask by Ryan Levesque Ryan Levesque is the founder and CEO of The Ask Method. Ryan has staked his career on The Ask Method. As the team at Fusion Results puts it, At its simplest level, the ASK Method is asking an audience what their challenges are, or what their desired results are and then segmenting those responses into something Ryan refers to as segment” or “buckets.” Product Development Being able to build, iterate, and ship product quickly can be a true differentiator for an early-stage startup. Luckily for founders, many operators and product managers have shared their tips and tricks behind product development below: Hooked by Nir Eyal Nir Eyal is an expert in all things behavioral engineering. His expertise and schooling brought him to write, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products. “Hooked is based on Eyal’s years of research, consulting, and practical experience. He wrote the book he wished had been available to him as a start-up founder—not abstract theory, but a how-to guide for building better products. Hooked is written for product managers, designers, marketers, start-up founders, and anyone who seeks to understand how products influence our behavior.” Shape Up by Ryan Singer Ryan Singer is the Head of Strategy at Basecamp. In Shape Up Ryan uncovers the product development process at Basecamp. Ryan shares how the team uses 6 week cycles to ship more work. As Ryan puts it himself, “Shape Up is for product development teams who struggle to ship. If you’ve thought to yourself “Why can’t we ship like we used to?” or “I never have enough time to think about strategy,” then this book can help. You’ll learn language and techniques to define focused projects, address unknowns, and increase collaboration and engagement within your team.” The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank Steve Blank has founded 8 companies and has been a staple in Silicon Valley since the 1970s. The Four Steps to the Epiphany breaks down his four-step customer development process (that launched The Lean Startup movement). As Steve puts it, “The book offers the practical and proven four-step Customer Development process for search and offers insight into what makes some startups successful and leaves others selling off their furniture. Rather than blindly execute a plan, The Four Steps helps uncover flaws in product and business plans and correct them before they become costly. Rapid iteration, customer feedback, testing your assumptions are all explained in this book.” Product Management by Intercom Intercom is one of the most successful modern day startups. They have become synonymous with a strong product. The Product Management book is their framework to help startups build and ship more products. As they put it, “You’ll learn: How to evaluate your current product and spot areas for improvement. Why “no” is the most important word in a product manager’s vocabulary. How to roll out new features and actually get them used by customers.” The Innovators Dilemma by Clayton Christensen Regarded as one of the most important business books of all time, “Christensen explains why most companies miss out on new waves of innovation. No matter the industry, he says, a successful company with established products will get pushed aside unless managers know how and when to abandon traditional business practices.” Learn why Renjit Philip, Founder of Explain.Care, loves it below: Summary As Seth Godin puts it, “It’s unlikely that you’re going to outsmart the experienced folks who have seen it all before… When you have to walk into one of these events, it pays to hire a local guide. Someone who knows as much as the other folks do, but who works for you instead.” Learning from the founder, investor, or operator that has been there before can be transformational for a startup founder.

If you step back to the 1990s, very few financing options existed for startups. The venture capital space was dominated by a few large firms. Founders had to turn to their personal bank account, loans, or family and friends to raise capital for their business. In the early 2000s the internet takes the world by storm. The capital required to build a business begins to decline and new investors step in to help more entrepreneurs start companies (like Y Combinator in 2005). A few years after YC and we see more venture capital firms and financing options pop up. Today the financing and investor options for founders continue to evolve. The rise of rolling funds, pre-seed funds, and seamless revenue financing has allowed more entrepreneurs to secure the right financing for their business. If you’re deciding what investors to raise from, check out the different types of investors below: Recommended Reading: The Understandable Guide to Startup Funding Stages 6 Types of Startup Investors Throughout the lifecycle of a startup, different financing options and investor types will become available. Depending on the market and stage of the business different investor types may make more sense. Banks Traditionally bank loans are the most common type of investor for a company. A bank loan usually requires operating history with revenue to ensure they will get paid back. According to the Small Business Administration, “For established businesses, owner investment and bank credit are the two most widely used kinds of financing.” Considerations As the team at Point Park put it, “Loan-seekers will usually be required to produce proof of collateral or a revenue stream before their loan application is approved. Because of this, banks are often a better option for more established businesses.” Requirements According to MyCorporation, “To get approved, you typically need to meet requirements like the following: You have been in business for 2 years or more The business has strong annual revenues (typically at least $100,000) Good credit (like a score of 640+)” Keep in mind that when applying for a loan through a bank, you will be required to share financial documents. Speed up the process by having your financials in order and ready for review by the bank. Friends & Family When a founder has a product or service they are ready to take to market but no operational history they may turn to equity investors to help with initial capital. Considerations When raising capital from friends and family, it is incredibly important to be transparent during the process. Early stage companies are generally a very risky investment and can lead to a loss of capital. Consider who has expendable income in your immediate network when reaching out. Keep in mind that if they are buying equity in your company, your business relationship will exist for the foreseeable future — remember to choose individuals that you can build a business relationship with. Requirements While there are no requirements when raising capital from your friends and family there are major risks involved. Make it clear why they should invest in you or your business. You will likely not need to formally pitch them as you would a venture capitalists but it is important they understand how they will generate returns on their investment. As we mentioned above, be transparent about the investment and make it clear that there is a chance they will lose their investment. Angel Investors Like venture capitalists, angel investors buy equity in startups. An angel investor is generally a wealthy individual who is looking to invest spare cash in an alternative investment. As we wrote in our post,How to Effectively Find + Secure Angel Investors for Your Startup, “This means that an angel investor may have alternative motives (personal interest in the problem, product, founders, etc.) whereas a venture capital firm is focusing on maximizing their returns.” Considerations A step above a “family & friend” investor, an angel has a better understanding of the risk at hand and more experience in the space. Oftentimes, angel investors are all around you and you may not realize it. As Elizabeth Yin puts it, “Angels may not know they are angels. It’s your job to plant the seed in their heads that you are open to an investment from them!” Requirements Like friends and family investors, there are no strict requirements when raising capital from angels. As most venture capitalists invest in software-enabled businesses, large markets, companies with huge valuation upside, etc. angel investors can fill the void for countless other businesses. Whereas a traditional investor is looking for returns, an angel investor might be intrigued and motivated by other things. As Elizabeth Yin goes on to write, “Angels are motivated by many different things; figure out how to tie your story to something that they want; getting an investment – much like sales – is about solving for their needs not yours.” With that said, the requirements of the pitch may be slightly different as you may want to hit on things outside of financials and the market. Related Resource: Top 6 Angel Investors in Miami Venture Capitalists Going a step deeper in the equity financing world are venture capitalists. Unlike angel investors, venture capital firms are professional investors dedicated to generating returns for their limited partners (LPs). As we explain in “Our Guide to How Venture Capital Works,” venture capital firms can generally be split into 3 main buckets (however, this can be broken down much more granularly). Related Resource: How to Create a Startup Funding Proposal: 8 Samples and Templates to Guide You Related Resource: What Is a Limited Partnership and How Does It Work? Early-stage/Pre-seed/Seed — Early stage firms are responsible for making one of the first investments in a company. They are generally investing in the team, product, or market in hopes of the company executing and generating returns. Oftentimes the riskiest investments with the most upside. Series A/B — Series A/B investors are generally in search of companies that have started generating serious revenue and have found product market fit. Expansion/Growth — Expansion and growth stage investors are looking for companies that are en route to an IPO or major acquisition (sometimes similar to a private equity firm). They write huge checks in huge companies. Considerations As venture capitalists cover just about every stage and every vertical, it is important to find the right investors for your business. The venture capital fundraising process can be extremely intimidating and generally requires a system, similar to a B2B sales process, to keep things organized and efficient. Consider how much capital you are raising and at what valuation. From there, start to target the right investors for your business. To learn more about finding the right investors for your business, check out this post. Related Reading: Everything a Startup Founder NEEDS to Know about Pro Rata Rights Related Reading: 23 Top VC Investors Actively Funding SaaS Startups Related Reading: How to Secure Financing With a Bulletproof Startup Fundraising Strategy Related Resource: How to Model Total Addressable Market (Template Included) Requirements Different venture capitalists will have different requirements. Obviously a pre-seed investor will have an entirely different set of requirements than a series B+ investor. There are countless tools and databases to help understand what VCs are right for your business — like our own database, Visible Connect. To learn more about requirements and benchmarks for different VC firms, check out our post, “The Understandable Guide to Startup Funding Stages.” Related Reading: Building A Startup Financial Model That Works Crowdfunding Over the last few years, crowdfunding has become a more popular way to raise equity financing. As the team at Republic defines it, ‘Crowdfunding is a way to raise money from a large number of people. Large groups of people pool together small individual investments to provide the capital needed to get a company or project off the ground. Individuals, charities or companies can create a campaign for specific causes and anyone can contribute.” Considerations Raising equity crowdfunding is a slightly different process than raising from angels and venture capitalists. Most solutions allow you to create a page/profile where investors will decide to invest (as opposed to one off pitches). A few popular equity crowdfunding solutions: Republic Fundable SeedInvest Wefunder Requirements Different platforms will likely have different requirements for companies looking to raise equity crowdfunding. Generally the companies are vetted by the platform before being posted for investment. Check out different platforms to understand their requirements. Related resource: Understanding The 4 Types of Crowdfunding Fundraising Disruptors There has continued to be innovation in the financing space over the last few years. The introduction of rolling funds has transformed how VCs can raise from LPs. There has also been an explosion in alternative financing options that can be beneficial to founders. Considerations There has been an explosion of alternative financing options over the past few years. More options means more opportunities for founders. A few of our favorites that have popped up in the market: Pipe Pipe turns MRR into ARR. It’s a trading platform for recurring revenue streams to get upfront capital. As we wrote in our post, Alternatives to Venture Capital, “For example, if you have a customer paying $1000/mo then the annual value would be $12,000. Let’s assume they are taking 10% (purely a guess, we are not sure what the actual terms are) that would result in $10,800 in cash ($12k*90%). This allows SaaS companies to get cash up front and hold in their bank account or use for customer acquisition. Presumably, their % take is less than what most SaaS companies offer for an annual discount as well.” Earnest Capital “Earnest Capital provides early-stage funding, resources and a network of experienced advisors to founders building sustainable profitable businesses.” Earnest Capital uses their own financing instrument called a Shared Earnings Agreement (SEAL). Essentially, SEALs are geared towards bootstrapped companies who are profitable or approaching profitability. Corl Rather than explaining it ourselves we’ll let the Corl website explain what they do. “Corl uses machine learning to analyze your business and expedite the funding process. No need to wait 3-9 months for approval. Corl can finance up to 5x your monthly revenue to a maximum of $1,000,000. Payments are equal to 1-10% of your monthly revenue, and stop if the business buys out the investment for 1-3x the investment amount.” To learn more about new and alternative financing options, check out this post. Requirements Each alternative financing option will have very different requirements. However, most of these options set clear expectations and requirements that will allow you to apply and/or qualify in a matter of minutes or days. Summary At the end of the day, every business is different. Each business has their own set of needs and expectations. Understand what type of investor will be most beneficial to your business and form a gameplan to raise capital. As more financing options become available, more founders and startups will have opportunities to succeed. No matter what type of capital you decide to raise — pick the investor that can help your business the most, not the investor that will look best in headlines. To learn more about raising capital, check out our blog here. If you are raising venture capital, check out Visible Connect, our investor database, to kickoff your round. We personally verify investor profiles to make sure their data is up-to-date. From there, add investors directly to our Fundraising CRM, to keep tabs on your raise.

6 strategies to hiring for startups Hiring your first employees not only sets the tone for your company culture but also has a direct impact on business success and outcomes, which is why having a world class hiring strategy for early-stage startups is crucial. Below we’ll cover the following topics to help you hire and attract top talent: How to set a strategy to attract top talent What to key traits you should look for in your first hires Identifying whether a candidate has the right hard and soft skills Leveraging onboarding to not only ramp but retain talent Additional resources to help with your recruiting efforts Check out how Malcolm Burenstam Linder, CEO and Co-Founder of Alva Labs, suggests that founders approach hiring their first employees below: Attract Top Talent Through Storytelling This should start at the candidate’s first touchpoint with your company, such as the careers page and job description. Crafting a story around why anyone should want to join your company should go beyond just the mission and vision, to feel more personal than what you might share with your customers or stakeholders. In the interview you can go even deeper and share why you specifically joined or started the company. Try to speak to the points which you think would personally resonate most with the candidate you’re interviewing. Many startups are unable to be competitive in salary compared to other major players, but the key is to find the unique things within your company that you can leverage such as an inspiring mission or being a part of something bound to have success. This can be even more exciting and convincing than a larger paycheck. Other things to highlight as one of the perks of joining early could be job advancement and stock options. “Selling the vision. Selling the idea that their stock would be worth so much. Selling myself as an amazing leader that they definitely wanted to work with. Just being authentic. Helping them understand why I was doing what I was doing. Why I was passionate about it and why I would be a good human being for them to work with and call their colleague.” Source Plan For and Attract Diverse Candidates Having diversity within your team is only possible if you’re presenting your company in a way that attracts a wide range of profiles. Creating a diverse funnel requires you to craft your job descriptions and careers page in a way where the message, language, and images you choose speaks to a broader spectrum of candidates. Think through and analyze how your employees are being represented on your website, as well as if your perks and benefits are inclusive to the needs of all potential candidates regarding gender, sexual orientation, race, social class and background. Hiring From Your Network Social media (such as twitter and LinkedIn) is one way to leverage your personal network for trusted referrals. This can be a great resource when it comes to recruiting- especially when you have limited resources such as access to an inhouse or external recruiter. Often some of the best candidates are referrals, since you have more insight to how they work and there is already a certain level of trust and comfort established. Something to be aware of when sourcing this way is that you continue to keep diversity top of mind. Hiring For a Fluid Organizational Structure and Changing Roles Your company and organizational structure will likely be continuously changing, which is why it’s often advisable to only hire for the next 6-12 months rather than having a long term solution mindset. Future proof roles by filling them with people who will be able to handle your current needs but are also able and willing to be flexible with new tasks and responsibilities, as the needs of the company change. This will make pivots and experimenting with new ideas and projects easier. It is important to communicate this in the interview process to make sure that the candidate is prepared and hopefully excited by potential change. For those who haven’t worked in early-stage startups before, it’s good for them to know that this is normal for companies who grow quickly and is a sign of success, which provides a lot of opportunities for them to grow within and advance professionally. Contract to Hire vs Project to Hire or Part-time Hiring employees full time doesn’t need to be your only option, especially early on when your resources can be limited. Other options include Project to Hire and Part- Time employees. If you only have a few one-off projects that you don’t want to add to the workload of your existing employees or hire full-time for, consider contracting other experts in the space. Even though this option might seem more costly than completing these tasks internally- it could actually save you in the long run and lead to better outcomes. For example if someone on your team had to learn a new process or skill set to complete this task, it would cost you more in the additional time it would take for them than someone with previous know how. Good resources for hiring contracted professionals are through websites such as Upwork and fiverr. Interviewing Having a formal interview process will not only benefit you but is important for your candidates as well. Start by writing clear, transparent, personable, and honest job descriptions. Know what you’re looking for- What are the must haves, important/ nice to haves, and bonus points. Don’t go at it alone- Try to involve more team members, especially the ones who will be working directly with the applicant. 7 things to look for in your first hire High Pain Tolerance and Grit Working in a startup means there’s a lot of experimentation that includes failing, breaking things, and shots in the dark that need to happen until you can find solutions that work. This requires being risk averse and not fearing failure, but rather welcoming it (when needed) and seeing it as an opportunity that will lead you to succeed and solve problems. When failure occurs your ideal candidate would quickly recover from these situations, get back up, course correct, and keep running with their new learnings top of mind. Look for someone who also wants to embrace or likes the start up company culture, which can have a lot of ups and downs. They should also be comfortable without having clear rules or ways of doing things and are ok to have the power to create these for the company as they go. Cultural Fit When deciding between candidates think- who would I rather be stuck in the car with? Your first hires are the ones you will likely be working with most closely and want to be onboard for a while. This means how well you get along with them vs how competent they are should be equally important. Attitude Having a positive attitude is everything. A negative person on board can bring an entire team down and is something you don’t want your customers to associate your company with. Positivity is something that people inherently have or not. It’s not anything you can force upon, so it’s a perk to have someone whose common nature is to see situations in an optimistic light. This is also an important attribute for creative problem solving. Entrepreneurial Mindset Having employees that want/ are capable of growing your company and scaling internal processes can provide value in the short and long term. Candidates with this mindset will often take more ownership of their projects and have an intrinsic drive to see the company succeed. To help them maximize their potential it’s important for the executive team to give trust and the freedom to drive their set initiatives forward. Generalists & Potential > Skill Set Having generalists on your team is crucial since working in a startup often means there’s a lot of work to be done with not much resources. So it’s advantageous to have people who are not only comfortable with but excited by the idea of wearing multiple hats. As well, finding someone who has the desire to learn and confidence to execute is more important than having prior knowledge and experience in a given area. In a company of 10 people, each will have to take on projects outside of their realm of expertise. Look for candidates who are looking to learn from others and are capable of finding the needed resources to do this- internally and externally. Hiring Candidates with Leadership Potential Often your first hires will end up being your longest employees and will likely have the most knowledge about your product/ company. This makes them a natural fit to develop into a team lead in their division, or even a possible cofounder, as the company grows. Look for attributes which would lend to good leadership such as a high EQ/ empathy, communication skills, decisiveness, and creativity. Another thing to look out for is the ability for the candidate to scale the company to where you want to be in the future. Open to Feedback and Self Improvement Situations and how we interact with one another can only improve when we are upfront with our expectations and clearly communicate this. Look for candidates who not only embrace feedback but want it. If people are defensive or have a hard time communicating what needs to be changed or done, it’s harder to move towards positive outcomes. Encourage a company culture which values clear, transparent, and empathetic communication. Suggest your employees to read Radical Candor to help with this. How to hire your first 10 startup employees Various roles require different skill sets and personality traits to help the candidate succeed. For instance someone working for a startup in a customer facing position will often encounter people telling them no, not respond to their emails, or have to endure negative product feedback. So you’ll want someone who is able to put out fires and keep pushing forward with the same motivation they had before their first no. Look out for those who can own their mistakes as well as know when and how to apologize. These traits can help customers empathize and move forward from a given problem. A great way to test for how well a candidate in a given role might approach a problem or topic is through Work Product Interviews. By choosing a current project you’re able to see how each candidate would approach it and give you additional brainpower to work through it. When choosing this approach it’s advisable to pay candidates for their time. If you’re not willing to pay it is best to choose a project that will not be used as a best practice. Related resource: 9 Signs It’s Time To Hire in a Startup Leadership When hiring the earliest leaders for your startup it is vital to be diligent during the interview process. These early leaders will set the tone for the culture and future hires at your organization. On top of being a culture fit, you will want to ensure they are capable of scaling their business unit and being a sounding board for making strategic decisions. Product Generally speaking the founder or CEO acts as the “product person” initially at a startup. As the company and product begin to mature, it is time to bring on product leaders and individuals to help take the product to next level. As with any of your first 10 hires you will want to make sure a product leader can work autonomously. As your time turns to supporting other parts of the organization, being able to have a product leader to lean on is essential. Sales, Customer Success, and Marketing Hiring for the business units begins to pickup after making your core hires. To learn more about hiring for customer success team members, check out our guide here. To learn more about making your first sales hires, check out this post. Onboarding Tips to Ensure They Stay A factor to consider if people aren’t succeeding in their role is a lack of active feedback and/ or clear expectations. They might not realize that the work they are producing isn’t meeting your standards if there is no clear and structured communication as well as KPI’s or goals set forth. Make sure to include opportunities for active and regular feedback loops during their onboarding in the first few months. This will help shape the work they produce, how well they adjust to organizational needs, and give them assurance of where they stand. If you need to let someone go or if an employee isn’t satisfied- it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Having a Well Defined Training Plan During Onboarding Setting clear expectations for the role- What are their responsibilities and what might you expect them to achieve and execute on. Goal setting- Setting weekly goals for the first 3 weeks and then monthly for the first 3 months is a good way to start. Giving ownership- Allowing someone to feel they have ownership gives them the motivation to take on responsibility and demonstrates trust. The Buddy System Being a new employee within a company, no matter how small it is, can feel daunting and sometimes isolating. Pairing new hires with an existing team member creates new social connections amongst your employees. This also helps with cross functional team work as well as employee happiness. New hires should feel they can not only turn to their buddy for questions but is also someone they can have a (virtual) lunch or coffee with. This is also an opportunity for them to be filled in on company culture and other things that might not have been covered in the initial onboarding. Startup Hiring Resources Background checks The things you might want to check for could vary on the role and the company. Besides calling, emailing or checking LinkedIn references, you could also use online background checks such as ClearChecks.com Sourcing Services vs. Recruiters Without having someone dedicated to HR it can be difficult to source talent which is why using websites that give you access to a curated pool of talent can be a good option. Owning recruiting for your 25+ hires, although difficult, is actually important as it allows you to shape your company culture which is created through the personality traits and profiles of your first employees. Possible websites to source tech talent in which you can apply to candidates directly are Hired.com, Talent.io, or Honeypot.io. Recruiting Software Breezy.hr is a great example of an end-to-end recruiting software that can help to manage things like sourcing, candidate pipeline, streamlining communication and interview scheduling. At the end of the day startups are in a constant competition for top talent. By having a system in place to source, interview, hire, onboard, and retain employees your odds of success as a company will be higher. To learn more about hiring for your startup, check out our related posts here. Related resources: The Top 9 Social Media Startups Why the Chief of Staff is Important for a Startup

Raise capital, update investors and engage your team from a single platform. Try Visible free for 14 days. With the continued surge to work-from-home, companies all over the world are becoming more dependent on cloud-based and collaborative services such as Slack, Zoom, Notion, and more. Where there is business, there is capital. Below, we list out security-focused VC firms to keep an eye out for. ForgePoint Capital ForgePoint Capital is founded by pioneers of cybersecurity. Led by Alberto Yepez, Donald Dixon, and Sean Cunningham, ForgePoint has been early-stage investing since 1998 and made over 50 investments in the space. They offer some thoughts and insight into their take on cybersecurity throughout their blog. Investment location: United States, Australia, Canada, Global Funding stages: Series A, Series B, Series C Notable investments: RapidFort, Instabug, TruEra Dreamit Ventures Dreamit Ventures looks to help startups with their Securetech program. Throughout this, their focus is on scaling, customers, and capital, not on building your product. Mel Shakir stands as the Managing Director of Dreamit’s Securetech sector. Investment location: United States, Global Funding stages: Accelerator, Seed, Series A, Series B, Growth Notable investments: Fohlio, CareAlign, SpecTrust Option 3 Ventures Option 3 Ventures finds and develops attractive investment opportunities at the frontiers of cybersecurity and immediately adjacent technologies. They have a robust venture capital team, led by Manish Thakur. Investment location: United States Funding stages: Series A, Series B Notable investments: Dellfer TenEleven Ventures TenEleven Ventures is solely focused on helping cybersecurity companies survive and thrive. They look to provide counsel, capital, and connections to security entrepreneurs. The Boston-based firm is led by Alex Doll and Max Hatfield. Investment location: Global Funding stages: Seed, Series A, Series B, Series C, Growth Notable investments: HiddenLayer, Immuta, Ordr Allegis Cyber Capital AllegisCyber Capital does one thing: cybersecurity. Cybersecurity takes industry knowledge and AllegisCyber has many years of investing experience, led by Bob Ackerman. Investment location: Global Funding stages: Seed, Series A, Series B Notable investments: Dragos, SkyHive, SafeGuard Cyber Paladin Capital Group Paladin Capital Group is comprised of active investors who leverage their deep industry experience and networks to maximize returns. They are a DC-based team led by Michael Steed, Mark Maloney, and more. Investment location: Global Funding stages: Series A, Series B Notable investments: GreyNoise, Nisos, Semperis Acrew Capital Acrew Capital is a venture capital firm that provides investable assets for diverse angel investors to fund tomorrow’s companies. Investment location: Global Funding stages: Seed, Series A, Series B, Growth Notable investments: Arthur, Carats & Cake, Pie Insurance Greylock Partners This venture capital firm invests in all stages, exclusively in consumer and enterprise software companies. It led the Series B round for both Facebook and Linkedin. Investment location: Global Funding stages: Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A, Series B, Growth Notable investments: Facebook, LinkedIn Kleiner Perkins Kleiner Perkins is a venture capital firm specializing in investing in early-stage, incubation, and growth companies. Investment location: Global Funding stages: Series A, Series B, Growth Notable investments: SpinLaunch, Lumafield, Open Raven Lightspeed Venture Partners Lightspeed Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that is engaged in the consumer, enterprise, technology, and cleantech markets. Investment location: United States, China, India, Israel Funding stages: Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A, Series B, Growth Notable investments: Remedial Health, Soda Health, Community Labs Related Resource: 9 Active Venture Capital Firms in Israel Bessemer Venture Partners Bessemer Venture Partners is the world’s most experienced early-stage venture capital firm. With a portfolio of more than 200 companies, Bessemer helps visionary entrepreneurs lay strong foundations to create companies that matter, and supports them through every stage of their growth. Investment location: United States, Bay Area Funding stages: Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A, Series B Notable investments: LinkedIn, Shopify, Yelp SixThirty SixThirty focuses on Fintech, Insurtech, and Cybertech. They are a fast-moving company that evaluates over 500 companies per year. SixThirty invests in companies that have a working product, market traction, and in most instances, recurring revenue. Investment location: Global Funding stages: Seed, Series A Notable investments: Global NightDragon NightDragon brings 25+ years of industry operating experience and market expertise to our portfolio companies. They work hand in hand with management to help scale their business and execute their strategic vision to drive successful outcomes. Investment location: Global Funding stages: Series B Notable investments: Immuta, Source Defense, Capella Space Security Leadership Capital Security Leadership Capital seeks to partner with a wide range of what would be considered “standalone” cybersecurity companies as well as other sectors that require a strong cybersecurity foundation to differentiate their offering, e.g. fintech, healthcare IT, blockchain, and cloud/datacenter infrastructure. Investment location: United States Funding stages: Seed Notable investments: DeepFactor Lytical Ventures Lytical Ventures is a New York City-based venture firm investing in Corporate Intelligence, comprising cybersecurity, data analytics, and artificial intelligence. Lytical’s professionals have decades of experience in direct investing generally and in Corporate Intelligence specifically. Investment location: United States Funding stages: Seed, Series A Notable investments: Careviso, Clausematch, Bold Metrics Get Connected to Cybersecurity VCs with Visible Finding the right investors for your business is only half the battle. Having a place to communicate with investors and track the progress of your raise allows you to spend more time on what matters most — building your business. Find the right investors with Visible Connect, track your conversations with our Fundraising CRM, share your pitch deck with investors, and update them along the way all from one platform. Give Visible a free try for 14 days here. Looking to learn more about fundraising? Check out some of our popular resources below: FinTech Venture Capital Investors to Know VCs Investing In Food & Bev Startups A Quick Overview on VC Fund Structure

On episode 11 of the Founders Forward Podcast we welcome Lolita Taub of Community Fund and Eric Bahn of Hustle Fund. Eric and Lolita recently launched The First Pitches Podcast “where famous founders share the first version of their pitch.” Combined with the fact that they are both investors in early stage startups it is fair to say they’ve seen their fair share of fundraising pitches. We could not think of a better one-two punch to help founders improve their storytelling and fundraising. About Lolita & Eric Lolita and Eric breakdown what they’ve learned from their podcast and investor roles to give founders actionable advice to kick start their next fundraise. Our CEO, Mike Preuss, had the opportunity to sit down and chat with Lolita & Eric. You can give the full episode a listen below (or in any of your favorite podcast apps). What You Can Expect to Learn from Lolita & Eric The importance of Twitter when it comes to networking and fundraising If a founder has to be an expert in a subject for them to be funded How to nail a first impression with investors How they view and analyze a deck in the pre-seed/seed stages What makes a great first pitch Why they care about what metrics a founder is measuring Related Resources First Pitches Podcast Lolita’s Twitter Eric’s Twitter Hustle Fund Community Fund The Founders Forward is Produced by Visible Our platforms helps thousands of founders update investors, track key metrics, and raise capital. Try Visible free for 14 days.

Startups are in a constant competition for two resources — capital and talent. Building a system to properly scale your business while maintaining your company culture is vital to a startup’s success. We figured there would be no better person to join us for a webinar to chat all things hiring and scaling than Julia Kauffman. Julia started her career in enterprise and eventually made the transition to High Alpha and is currently the VP of People & Admin at Mandolin. If there is one person who knows what it takes to properly scale the headcount at an early-stage startup, it’s Julia. Check out the recording and our favorite takeaways below: A couple of quick highlights from the webinar: Contract for Hire When hiring at the early stage it is crucial that you make hires that are “athletes” and can flex to any role while fitting in with your team and culture. Julia personally uses a contract with potential employees. This means that she offers short term contract (usually 30 days) to see how a potential employees fits with the team and culture then goes on to make a full time offer. Ongoing Development When scaling headcount it is important to have a standard onboarding process for new employees. Julia likes to use ongoing training and development to help employees find success. One of the things Julia recommends is a regular competitive analysis. In short, the team takes a lot at their competition so they have a solid understand of the business and the market. This can be done at the individual or team level. Julia also likes to leverage 1 on 1s to help with ongoing development. On a weekly basis Julia sits down and talks for 30 minutes with employees to talk about anything they’d like. This can be work, blockers, projects, anything they’d like, etc. On a quarterly basis Julia blocks an hour with employees to talk about personal development and their job so they know they have time to talk about it and their personal development. Mission, Vision, and Values Maintaining your startup culture as you scale can be difficult. Having your mission, vision, and values in place is essential as you hire and bring on new employees. When asked how companies should define their initial values, Julia recommends surveying everyone in the organization on what their values are, then you can pass those on to the leadership team to pick the ones that will be used at the core of decision making for the company. Sourcing Candidates Outside of job boards there are some interesting ways to source new candidates. Julia suggests checking out communities and different groups. Get in the habit of networking and engaging with different communities to source candidates from new and qualified places. Another source can be partners and organizations you are already working with. If done right and respectfully, this can tap into an entirely new network and candidate pool. Talking Equity Equity can be an integral part of attracting and retaining top talent. However, there can be confusion and questions surrounding equity. There are differing views on how to handle discussing and sharing cap table information. Julia believes that you need to (1) explain how and why you give out equity and (2) show employees everything and talk through the details. While it can be difficult to be transparent, most employees will understand and want to work through the details. To stay up-to-date with our future webinars and Founders Forward podcast, sign up for our newsletter below:

On episode 10 of the Founders Forward Podcast we welcome Jim McKelvey, Co-Founder of Square. The now publicly traded company with a $100B+ market cap has humble beginnings dating back to Jim and his time in a glass studio. Jim recently published his book, The Innovation Stack: Building an Unbeatable Business One Crazy Idea at a Time, that studies how Square managed to thrive and beat Amazon and draws on similar stories from companies like Southwest and Ikea. About Jim Square and Jim used a series of “innovation stacks” to not only beat Amazon but to take them to the high flying public company they are today. Jim has a deep passion for entrepreneurship and innovation that comes across as we discuss his journey building Square. Our CEO, Mike Preuss, had the opportunity to sit down and chat with Jim. You can give the full episode a listen below (or in any of your favorite podcast apps). What You Can Expect to Learn from Jim How the idea for Square was started How Jim started his relationship with Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Square What it means to be an entrepreneur vs. business person What Southwest and Square have in common What an innovation stack is How Jim views venture capital How and why businesses copy Related Resources Jim’s Twitter Jim’s LinkedIn The Innovation Stack: Building an Unbeatable Business One Crazy Idea at a Time

In 2020 we launched the Founders Forward Podcast. The goal of the podcast is to enable founders to learn from their peers and leaders that have been there before. Over the last 7 weeks our CEO, Mike Preuss, has interviewed a different founder or startup leader every week. Related Resource: 11 Venture Capital Podcasts You Need to Check Out Here are some of our favorite quotes and takeaways from the first 7 interviews: Lindsay Tjepkema, Founder of Casted Our first episode of the Founders Forward was with Lindsay Tjepkema. Considering she is a podcasting expert, we figured there could not be a better first guest. We chat all things podcasting and alternative media types. However one of the tidbits we found most interesting was Lindsay’s outlook on venture fundraising. Oftentimes fundraising can be a frustrating journey but Lindsay views the process as an opportunity to promote her business and tell her company’s story. Give the full episode a listen here. Amanda Goetz, Founder of House of Wise House of Wise is Amanda’s second go as a startup founder. However things are no less difficult than her first time around. Her first journey was spent worrying about legal aspects and the basics of getting her business running. That was easy with House of Wise but she has faced new challenges (and opportunities) during her second journey. Give the full episode a listen here. Jeff Kahn, Founder of Rise Science Jeff has 10 years of sleep science experience and research. Before starting Rise Science Jeff spent time publishing academic articles and supporting world-class athletes and teams with better sleep. Jeff Kahn is a true expert in all things sleep. During our interview with Jeff, we chatted about how sleep can improve a founder’s leadership skills and productivity. Give the full episode a listen here. Aishetu Dozie, Founder of Bossy Cosmetics Aishetu Dozie started her career in banking and eventually made the transition to starting a cosmetics company. Just like any founder, her first time journey has been full of highs and lows. Aishetu, like many founders and leaders, has struggled with imposter syndrome. We love her thoughts below on how she has tackled imposter syndrome. Give the full episode a listen here. Kyle Poyar, Partner at OpenView Ventures OpenView Ventures is credited with coining the term “Product-Led Growth.” As Kyle and the team at OpenView continue to help SaaS companies grow and become market leaders he has seen it all. From the early days of defining PLG and the impact of COVID-19 Kyle is full of first-hand stories and the data to back it up. Check out how Kyle defines and thinks about PLG below. Give the full episode a listen here. Yin Wu, Founder of Pulley Yin Wu has been through Y Combinator 3 times and has successfully exited 2 companies. Over the course of her founder journey it is safe to say that she has spent a good amount of time fundraising and chatting with investors. Yin likes to bucket investors into 3 categories to structure who she should be chatting with and raising from. Give the full episode a listen here. Cheryl Campos, Head of Venture Growth at Republic Over the past 3 years, the funding options for startups have continued to transform. Over her 3 years at Republic, Cheryl has watched as the market has changed and crowdfunding has become a more viable option. Check out Cheryl’s thoughts on the new funding options below. Give the full episode a listen here. We have plenty of new episodes recorded and ready to share in 2021.

On episode 9 of the Founders Forward Podcast we welcome Don Brown, Founder and CEO of LifeOmic. Prior to starting LifeOmic, Don started 6 companies with his first being acquired by GM in 1986 and his most recent, Interactive Intelligence, being acquired for $1.4B in 2016. Since the acquisition Don has turned to his passion of medicine and the medical field by founding LifeOmic (and LIFE Apps). LifeOmic is a single platform that “activates precision health and wellness.” About Don Even though Don has started 6 companies he might actually have more knowledge in intermittent fasting and health. Through his studies at John Hopkins and the introduction of the LIFE Fasting Tracking, Don has become a true expert on all things fasting. Our CEO, Mike Preuss, had the opportunity to sit down and chat with Don. You can give the full episode a listen below (or in any of your favorite podcast apps). What You Can Expect to Learn from Don What he learned from starting 6 companies What he learned from navigating the dot-com bust, the Great Recession, and COVID-19. The importance of knowing the job to be done Why intermittent fasting isn’t just “another diet craze” Why intermittent stresses are good for your body The benefits of intermittent fasting How you should think about setting up a fasting schedule Related Resources Don’s Twitter Don’s LinkedIn LIFE Apps The LIFE Fasting Tracker The Founders Forward is Produced by Visible Our platforms helps thousands of founders update investors, track key metrics, and raise capital. Try Visible free for 14 days.

What is a cap table (i.e. capitalization table)? “Cap Tables” or capitalization tables are a critical term to understand for any startup founder or aspiring founder. But what is a cap table and why is it important? At the core, a capitalization or cap table is a table or spreadsheet that lays out the equity capitalization for the company. The equity capitalization is the total value of all the shares of the company and the breakdown of how those shares are divided. A cap table is an intricate breakdown of the shares value, holders, and projections. The cap table typically includes specifics of a company’s equity ownership capital such as common and preferred equity shares, warrants, and any convertible equity. Why is a cap table important for startups? Cap tables are important for startups for a variety of reasons. It is fundamental for a founder to understand the full scope of a cap table and why they are so important to execute. Cap tables are important because overall they illustrate the health of a startup for investors. Ownership Breakdown Founders need to be aware at all times of what their cap table means for ownership of their company. Understanding ownership is critical as the company grows and develops. Cap tables tell investors who owns what part of a company. Current investors want to see who has control. They also want the ability to forecast potential payouts and dilution under specific scenarios based on the ownership split. The breakdown of ownership in a startup can overall affect the value of the company for future fundraising rounds as well as who needs to be at the table for certain critical company decisions. Related Resource: How to Fairly Split Startup Equity with Founders Understanding Contributed Equity: A Key to Startup Financing Value Tracking An up-to-date and detailed cap table is important for tracking the value of a startup over time. Beyond current investors and founders understanding the value of a growing startup, employees find cap tables useful as well. A detailed, well-kept cap table is helpful for employees to access if they have options or equity stakes in the startup they work for. Offering equity is an appealing way to draw in top talent at leading startups. The ability to track value real-time by viewing a cap table is an important component of the value of a cap table. Fundraising In addition to current investors utilizing a cap table for forecasting and dilution predictions for different outcomes on their investments, potential investors and future fundraising can also be affected by cap tables. Potential investors can evaluate how much control and leverage could be maintained during negotiations by viewing a cap table. Historical insight provided in a cap table can affect negotiating current valuation for new funding raises. Additionally, an existing shareholder can easily determine what percentage of the company to give to the new investors in exchange for the capital contributed. Potential Audits In the event of an audit on a startup, a well-managed cap can allow your legal team to present your company’s history and holdings with accurate and well-organized information via a cap table. In general, a well-organized and well-maintained cap table is critical for the health and growth of a company across all financial situations. What does a cap table look like? Cap Tables are built out on two axis’. Typically, cap tables include a list of names or groups associated with the startup including founders, investors and common share stakeholders along one of the axis. Along the other axis the items that the various stakeholders and owners own. These items include things like types of securities, how many of these securities they own, when they invested in the company, and the percentage of company owned. Carta provides a good example of a Cap Table below: How do you make a cap table? Cap tables can be created and managed in a variety of ways. Typically it is common for new startup founders to build their initial cap table in a spreadsheet. However, as your startup grows and the valuation and stakeholders get more involved and complex, simple cap table design in a program like excel won’t work. Some companies will use a tool, such as CapShare or Carta to build and manage their cap tables. These tools are typically more dynamic and less manual than managing via excel. They can be easier to utilize to share out and circulate with employees and investors. In other scenarios, it might make the most sense to outsource the production and management of a cap table. When founders choose to self-manage their own cap table they are susceptible to risks. Some of these risks include miscalculating valuations which can lead to giving up too much equity and over-diluting shares in new investment rounds. Additionally, there might be tax consequences or legal issues that come up from mis-management of a cap table. By outsourcing the production and management of a cap table. Typically this management is outsourced to a legal team to ensure accuracy and compliance. Outsourcing is more expensive than managing with a software but can be much less expensive the cost of major mistakes or miscalculation of value. How to use a cap table? When using a cap table, it’s important to understand the following formulas: Post-Money Valuation = Pre-Money Valuation + Total Investment Amount Price-Per-Share = Pre-Money Valuation / Pre-Money Shares Post-Money Shares = Post Money Valuation/ Price-Per-Share Investor Percent Ownership = Investor Shares / Post-Money Shares These formulas are essentially what will be laid out in a cap table so understanding them is crucial. These formulas can also be used to update the cap table as it grows more complex via different significant financial rounds. The more investment rounds or other significant financial changes on the table, the more complex the cap table gets. This breakdown essentially showcases the additional steps and participants who are stakeholders in the startup. Founders round – this is the simplest version of the cap table and will typically showcase the simple split of equity between the founders of the company. Seed round – this introduces investors to the table who now own a portion of the company along with the founders and have given cash to the startup altering the overall value. Options pool round – when options are provided for new employees, this changes the value and breakdown of the company as represented by the cap table. Overtime, as more employees are hired and more options are granted, the more complex the cap table gets. VC round(s) – With any additional funding rounds taken on by the startup, the valuation drastically changes as does the list of stakeholders on the cap table. All of these events or rounds are significant and will change the breakdown and complexity of the cap table. How do you keep a cap table updated? With the array of cap table management tools on the market updating and keeping tabs on your cap table is easier than ever before. Generally founders need to stay on top of their cap table management. If you raise a new round, offer new employee grants, terminate an employee, etc. you need to make the changes as soon as possible to avoid future headaches. If you put off updating your cap table in real time it could end up being a costly mistake as you need a lawyer to update and correct the table. We highly recommend using software to manage and update your cap table to make your life as easy as possible. There are countless options but we recommend using Pulley. You can learn more about cap table management (and Pulley) in our Founders Forward Podcast with Pulley CEO and Founder, Yin Wu, here. Cap table examples/templates Instead of starting from scratch, many founders will use a template to build out a cap table. Alexander Jarvis provides an easy cap table template here. S3 Ventures offers a template in Excel that they recommend for their portfolio companies. Manage Your Stakeholders with Visible Manage relationships with your investors and other stakeholders using Visible. Centralize your key data, share updates with investors, and track your interactions with current (and potential) investors all from one place. Learn more and try Visible for free here.