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Welcome to Phase Three of a four-part Splitting Equity Series. If you missed it, start your journey here: Introduction - Early Startup Equity — Getting it Right before continuing on if you haven’t already, and go in order from there.

Phase One - Startup Equity - Avoiding Early Mistakes

Phase Two - How Startup Equity Works

Phase Three - Part 1 - How to Split Equity

• Part 2 - Splitting Equity Today

• Part 3 - Splitting Equity in the Future ( ←YOU ARE HERE 😀)

• Part 4 - Calculating Startup Equity Splits + FAQ

Phase Four - Equity Management

Let's continue!

Founder equity splits rarely turn out to be what we hoped they would be after Year 1. The co-founders at startup companies start off with the best intentions, but as the business venture turns into lon...

Welcome to Phase Three of a four-part Splitting Equity Series. If you missed it, start your journey here: Introduction - Early Startup Equity — Getting it Right before continuing on if you haven’t already, and go in order from there.

Phase One - Startup Equity - Avoiding Early Mistakes

Phase Two - How Startup Equity Works

Phase Three - Part 1 - How to Split Equity

• Part 2 - Splitting Equity Today

• Part 3 - Splitting Equity in the Future

• Part 4 - Calculating Startup Equity Splits + FAQ (←YOU ARE HERE 😀)

Phase Four - Equity Management

Let's continue!

At this point, we have all we need to calculate our equity splits. It’s showtime, baby! All of the different agreements we’ve made from this point on are just a formula to calculate an outcome. Ideally...

If I hadn't been a Founder, I'd be an awful parent.

Now, I'm already giving myself too much credit here because it's assuming I'm not an awful parent, which let's be honest, many of us just might be. But I've definitely come to appreciate over the years raising my 5-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter how my best parenting traits are directly mapped back to what I've learned as a Founder.

Surprisingly, it really has little to do with "building a startup" and more to do with how I've come to think like a Founder.

The Power to Question Me

The day my son Wil was born, I wrote him a long letter. In it, I gave him all of the advice I had in me about preparing him for the world. The one piece that's always resonated the most was "Question every...

Welcome to Phase Three of a four-part Splitting Equity Series. If you missed it, start your journey here: Introduction - Early Startup Equity — Getting it Right before continuing on if you haven’t already, and go in order from there.

Phase One - Startup Equity - Avoiding Early Mistakes

Phase Two - How Startup Equity Works

Phase Three - Part 1 - How to Split Equity ( ←YOU ARE HERE 😀)

• Part 2 - Splitting Equity Today

• Part 3 - Splitting Equity in the Future

• Part 4 - Calculating Startup Equity Splits + FAQ

Phase Four - Equity Management

Let's continue!

By default, most startup founders just split their equity once and live with it. They may decide on an equal split or they may devise some reasons why the split favors one partner more than another. But ...

Welcome to Phase Three of a four-part Splitting Equity Series. If you missed it, start your journey here: Introduction - Early Startup Equity — Getting it Right before continuing on if you haven’t already, and go in order from there.

Phase One - Startup Equity - Avoiding Early Mistakes

Phase Two - How Startup Equity Works

Phase Three - Part 1 - How to Split Equity

• Part 2 - Splitting Equity Today ( ←YOU ARE HERE 😀)

• Part 3 - Splitting Equity in the Future

• Part 4 - Calculating Startup Equity Splits + FAQ

Phase Four - Equity Management

Let's continue!

Startup founders have been trying to figure out a fair equity split for the founding team since the dawn of time. Sadly, dividing equity between each co-founder tends to be one of the biggest mistakes w...

Continuing in Phase Three of a four-part Funding Series:

Phase One - Structuring a Fundraise

Phase Two - Investor Selection

Phase Three - The Pitch

• Part 1 - Anatomy of a Pitch

• Part 2 - Market Size

• Part 3 - Revenue Model

• Part 4 - Operating Model

• Part 5 - Customer Definition

• Part 6 - Customer Acquisition (←YOU ARE HERE 😀)

• Part 7 - Funding

• Part 8 - Key Pitch Assets

• Part 9 - Traction

Phase Four - Investor Outreach

Let’s dive in!

Our Customer Acquisition Slide in our pitch deck details our acquisition strategy for new customers. For many startups, defining a marketing growth strategy will be inherently linked to our customer acquisition cost for new customers and the key metrics in how we convert them.

What does a Customer Acquisition Strategy look like...

Running a startup is a ton of work as a solo Founder, so much so that many Founders find themselves at a loss trying to get everything done. For those that are non-technical, this proves to be a challenge, as coding is essential in this day and age, so bringing on a technical co-founder is a must. This is also true for technical Founders missing the mark on the creative front, so it's no surprise that one of the most searched terms on the internet is "finding a cofounder."

It seems like it should be easy — find a co-founder (or more) that aligns with your startup idea, mission, and has the complementary skills to do all the things you don't know how to — but it's not that simple. Finding the right co-founder is a complex combination of effor...

Continuing in Phase Three of a four-part Funding Series:

Phase One - Structuring a Fundraise

Phase Two - Investor Selection

Phase Three - The Pitch

• Part 1 - Anatomy of a Pitch

• Part 2 - Market Size

• Part 3 - Revenue Model

• Part 4 - Operating Model

• Part 5 - Customer Definition

• Part 6 - Customer Acquisition

• Part 7 - Funding

• Part 8 - Key Pitch Assets

• Part 9 - Traction ( ←YOU ARE HERE 😀)

Phase Four - Investor Outreach

Let’s dive in!

Startup Traction is your opportunity to tell investors how far you've taken the business up until this point. Just having a great idea is wonderful, but generating traction is what truly differentiates you from the pack. Especially in the early days, the only thing better than traction is more traction.

Traction Sets You Apart...

The only guarantee as a startup Founder is that we are going to be wrong — all the time.

Like, really, really wrong. We're going to be wrong about who we hire, what product decisions we make... hell, our entire startup idea is going to be a steaming pile of dung.

But guess what? That's OK.

Where we blow this up for ourselves is thinking that we have to have the right answer for every aspect of our startup. Of course, we want to get to the right answer, but the likelihood that we're going to "know it" from scratch is pretty much zero. Even if we do, we just got lucky.

The Business Idea is Wrong

Somehow we've built this mythology that great Founders have these "stroke of genius" ideas right out of the gates, and all they do from there is j...

Continuing in Phase Three of a four-part Funding Series:

Phase One - Structuring a Fundraise

Phase Two - Investor Selection

Phase Three - The Pitch

• Part 1 - Anatomy of a Pitch

• Part 2 - Market Size

• Part 3 - Revenue Model

• Part 4 - Operating Model

• Part 5 - Customer Definition

• Part 6 - Customer Acquisition

• Part 7 - Funding

• Part 8 - Key Pitch Assets ( ←YOU ARE HERE 😀)

• Part 9 - Traction

Phase Four - Investor Outreach

Let's dive in!

Our investor pitch deck is just one of a handful of assets we need to have prepared for potential investors. A compelling startup pitch deck is just part of the package — if we're going to raise money and impress investors we'll need to prepare everything from our elevator pitch to our financial projections to a comprehensive...