FounderPool

De-Risking startup founders by pooling equity

18 followers

De-Risking startup founders by pooling equity

18 followers

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Pool your startup equity with inspiring, VC-backed founders vested in your success. Diversify your financial risk and increase your odds of an exit. FounderPool is your go-to resource for Investor Intros, Hiring Referrals, Growth Advice, Partnerships & more.

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Robomart

@chandraduggirala Congrats on the launch! I love the idea, in fact I had tried to set up something similar in 2011 called Metafounders. The idea was to exchange equity so founders can share risk (we toyed with direct exchanges and pools). However a few of the concerns we had were: 1) the actual $ (from successful exits) ends up being so little that when spread across a pool it results in a very small upside for each founder in the pool (the math isn't that attractive - for example even if there was a mega exit from a batch of 40 at $10bn, with the rest being small acquihires or failures, at exit the founder of that startup would own around 6% at exit, which means that each participant in the pool would end up with only $750k from that pool assuming 5% contribution from each founder. That's not that attractive especially after 8-10 years. Most founders even after failing would go on to a new venture and likely eventually succeed, but the pool loses out because it was tied to just that startup. The math can work for investors because they are investing knowing they stand to lose most investments and need only one to hit it out of the park. 10% on 10bn exit from a portfolio of 40 startups is a lot more attractive than 5% of 6% of a 10bn exit shared among 40 people. 2) most startup founders know they should spread their risk and not put all their eggs into one basket, however every single founder also truly believes that their startup will succeed against all odds. Convincing the founders of future unicorns and decacorns to join this will be more difficult, which means the actual founders in these pools could be tier 2 startups, further leading to a lower $ upside in the future. I'm sure you and your team are way smarter that we were and have thought through these and much more, but would be interesting to hear your thoughts around these issues. And excited to see how this shapes out!

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6yr ago

FounderPool

Maker

@syedaliahmed Hi Ali, 1. The numbers alone are for mitigating downside risk. In the case you described, if you assume there are ~20 companies in the pool, the returns are $1.5M per participant, but more than that, the value the network delivers over time will increase the odds of success of everyone. Even after cap gains, it is still $1.2M 2. We are finding that realism and optimism are the two simultaneous states many impressive founders share. It is almost a quantum state of mind.

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6yr ago

The Yac team did the first round robin on FounderPool and met a lot of really cool startups here. The team at FounderPool is super receptive to feedback and I'm excited to see where this goes.

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6yr ago

FounderPool

Maker

@jmitch Thanks for the support and shaping the product, Justin!

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6yr ago

Very excited to see this launch, The Proof Market / MedCreds team will be joining the pools in the near future!

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6yr ago

FounderPool

Maker

@tonyrose Thats excellent Tony! Please get in your application so we have you in the system to meet other qualified companies. https://startups.founderpool.co/...

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6yr ago

FounderPool

Maker

A bit about why we built FounderPool and current status:

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6yr ago

@george_burke Love it

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6yr ago

Build a Stack

Great idea and an impressive team. How do you plan to monetize? Percentage of the pool?

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6yr ago

FounderPool

Maker

@navpar Thank you, We plan to take a membership in each pool.

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6yr ago

Guys, what stage startups can participate in this? how does selection work?

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6yr ago

FounderPool

Maker

@tomaspaulo We are stage agnostic and have pool members from seed to unicorn status. However to date we have screened for funded companies to ensure there is a valuation. Selection is based on other founder rankings.

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6yr ago

FounderPool

Maker

@tomaspaulo When we started out, we assumed only pre-seed/seed companies would apply. Turns out we've had applications from companies as far along as SERIES D. A few applicants have raised 9-figures.

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6yr ago

Link Texting

How'd you guys come up with the idea for this? Tell me the anecdote....

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6yr ago

FounderPool

Maker

@datarade Was writing about how startup landscape is changing and how startups have become more dependent on luck. Do you agree the distribution channels are getting increasingly crowded?

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6yr ago

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