Dilution is a natural part of the growing process of any startup, and typically if you're experiencing dilution it's because you are gaining something in return - cash, in the case of investors, or sweat equity in the case of employees. There isn't an exact science to dilution/valuation in most cases, especially in the very early stages. You need to sell as much/as little of the company as is required in order to secure the resources you need to be successful. Owning 100% of something that isn't particularly is always going to be worse than owning 1% of a billion dollar company.
That said, there are generally some norms around percentages for co-founders, and employee option grants can be benchmarked against comp data that you can find in Carta or Pave.
Dilution sucks.You need to min, and/or bootstrap. It's prob more popular a notion now (since 20-21 funding cohorts for VCs are flarked- I think it is the 2022 cohort that fund commits are 40^ than normal 60- so VCs aren't spending like it's...1999).
I have made free excel sheets to explain dilution, cap tables, conv note, SAFE, etc.
I invented something called the future fundraise model. The idea is to set your exit goal and work backwards so you can plan your raise plan (and dilution) till then - so you know how much you need to raise in this round to get to s-a and raise x with y traction and so on.
The idea is to create a framework to think about what you are doing if you go down the VC path (and ow to deliver).
There are things to consider- first, if you C level= earn less. When hiring staff less likely to ask fro more than CEO...
Staff go in a bucket which VCs negotiate as it affects the px (make a hiring plan)
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[ 5.0 ms ] story [ 17.6 ms ] threadThat said, there are generally some norms around percentages for co-founders, and employee option grants can be benchmarked against comp data that you can find in Carta or Pave.
Happy to chat more if that would be helpful!
I have made free excel sheets to explain dilution, cap tables, conv note, SAFE, etc.
I invented something called the future fundraise model. The idea is to set your exit goal and work backwards so you can plan your raise plan (and dilution) till then - so you know how much you need to raise in this round to get to s-a and raise x with y traction and so on.
The idea is to create a framework to think about what you are doing if you go down the VC path (and ow to deliver).
There are things to consider- first, if you C level= earn less. When hiring staff less likely to ask fro more than CEO... Staff go in a bucket which VCs negotiate as it affects the px (make a hiring plan)