The MAGNiTT team was lucky to meet with hundreds of entrepreneurs and startups last week during the STEP 2016 conference. Equity in startups was often part of the discussions: “As a co-founder how much equity should I ask for?” – “We’ve found a SEED investor: how much equity should we give him?” Our first two tools for this week will point you in the right direction. For those in a less advanced stage we’ve included a great tool to manage the idea exploration process. There’s also an amazing map maker tool in the mix and a customer service platform. You know what they say about happy customers don’t you?
1.Startup Equity Calculator - startupequity.io
Figure out how much equity to grant new hires in seconds. Giving away equity is a painful process even among partners. There are so many things to consider aside from the pure financial contributions. Who brings vital credibility to the business? What is the marginal benefit that Mr. X brings to the team? What tasks are people accountable for?
Will everyone take the same salary and work the same hours? Does Mr. X have the same time horizon as the team? Is he committed to the startup? I foresee blistering headaches ahead but here’s a tool that can help shed some light. It’s based on four different equity models so it can give different perspectives to the questions you have…
Over the past few years, convertible notes have become one of the most popular ways to structure seed stage financings. Although some VCs and investors may not always like using convertible notes, they are nonetheless an extremely common and frequent form of legal structure in the US and particularly in Silicon Valley. Because convertible notes are generally simpler and less expensive than doing a more formal priced round, many founders and investors use them to “bridge” a company until it gets to larger, more traditional financing. Don’t forget to show your lawyer the documents. These docs are slightly investor biased…
3.Mapme – Creating smart maps - mapme.com
Build a map, populate it, and promote it. Mapme empowers anyone to build smart and beautiful maps for free and without any coding required. The maps are designed to work perfectly across smartphones, tablets and computers. Whether it’s to create a vibrant online community or to visualize places mentioned in a blog post, the Mapme platform gives everyone the power to create beautiful and smart maps.
4. Helprace – Personalized help desk and customer feedback - helprace.com
Imagine a race to outperform the competition to provide the best customer service. Helprace is a cloud-based customer service application for companies looking to build a connection with their customers. Companies can start with basic support, populating their self-service portal and customer community as their brand evolves. The idea for Helprace came about due to a lack of an all-in-one, holistic support solution. Back in 2011 founder and CEO Gregory Koldirkaev thought the customer service software market was fragmented and lacked cohesion. “Everyone had their blinders on, from help desk providers to knowledge base guys to community managers” he recalls. “
5. Getting from Ideas to Execution - Germ.io
From capturing ideas to the actual execution of your master plan, Germ.io is particularly well suited to startups. When they first hit you, your ideas are still far too abstract to be forced into a structure. Support the idea with pictures; they are sometimes worth a thousand words. Validate the ideas with your team and feedback from the people that matter. Invite collaborators to brainstorm, and build focused discussions around each idea. Finally, before action, extract the ideas that actually make sense. Identify which ideas make your team yell "Eureka", and which ones make you go"meh!".
