What Does it Mean to do a Startup

  1. Team
    • how committed is the team?
  2. Growth
  3. Vision
  4. Market Need

Team

Everything here is rough rules of thumb. - founders + students (Research Lead) + students (Research Team) + Students (MBA) + Professors (?) - how to split up the pot + 10-15% for angels (don’t let them have more) + founders more than majority stake (70 - 80%) + advisory board (2-5%) + option pool (10-15%)

  • Angels
    • equity (10-15%)
    • Convertible Note
      • don’t know how much I’m worth, but when one figures it out, I get a d% discount: Money: d, Discount: d%, and Cap: c
      • put max cap high (between 2 and 10 M)
      • investor gets (1 + d) * x * c
    • YC Note (SAFE)
    • sometimes note has a cap, safes don’t
  • Professor (Consulting)
    • Student and Professor lead (small %)
    • Well-wisher (few %)
    • detailed support (interim CEO)
  • University
    • Patents
    • NYU can’t claim ownership of class projects
  • allocate ~20 Million shares worth about $2 or $20 in total