Founder’s Pocket Guide: Cap Tables

Stephen R. Poland

Apr 2015 · 1x1 Media

About this ebook

The goal of this guide is to help you understand the key moving parts of a startup cap table, review typical cap table inputs, and demystify terminology and jargon associated with cap table discussions. Along the way, this highly visual guide provides easy-to-follow examples for the most common calculations related to cap table building.

Expanding on these key skills every startup founder should know, this Founder’s Pocket Guide helps you learn how to:

•          Build your basic cap table step by step, including founder’s shares, option pools, angel investor rounds, and VC rounds.

•          Decipher cap table specific lingo, such as fully-diluted shares outstanding, preferred shares vs. common shares, Series A, Series B, and so on.

•          Establish a stock option pool in your cap table and understand the option pool effect on founder dilution.

•          Understand the simple math behind cap table formulas and calculations, including calculating fully diluted shares outstanding, investor equity ownership percentages, and share price.

Ratings and reviews

Good reading for the price / volume, but could have been better. This book is designed to cover captables only for the most part (not negotiations, stock types in details or option vesting), and it does it well. Pros: - Nice and clear explanations Cons: - Only one Excel spreadshit is discussed throughout the entire book. More examples (with another styles of it) of cap tables would be welcome. - Option vesting in cap tables is not covered at all. - Way too much focus on ovbious things like filling Excel table cells. Ridiculous.

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