FounderPool: A community for founders to share risk and diversify their equity • Hacker News Board

Re: FounderPool: A community for founders to share risk and diversify their equity

#201

Post by csentropy » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 10:46 PM UTC

smabie wrote: post #182

tqi wrote: post #57

This sounds similar to Pando [1], which is doing income pooling for professional baseball players [2]: "Nobody has to pay a cent until they've made it to the majors and they've made $1.6 million. Then that guy has to kick 10% of his salary back to his pool mates." [1] https://www.pandopooling.com/baseball [2] https://www.npr.org/2019/10/25/773532516/some-baseball-playe...

Poker players to much the same thing and trade percent stakes before tournaments. And once again, modern portfolio theory triumphs!

Good analogy.

Re: FounderPool: A community for founders to share risk and diversify their equity

#202

Post by csentropy » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 10:48 PM UTC

mauriziocalo wrote: post #195

imtringued wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would ownership at exit matter? If the founder only has 15% ownership then he will still have to give up 1% not 0.15% of total equity. This means the founder will be left with 14% equity.

The FounderPool website specifically mentions: > You contribute 1% of your equity into your pool. My understanding is that if a founder owns 30% (say) of the company when they join the pool, they would contribute towards the pool a number of shares corresponding to 1% of that 30%, i.e. 0.3% of the company. Which will presumably get further diluted by the time the company exits. Having founders contribute X% of their…

Agree. Founders contribute a percentage of the equity they would fully own, if fully vested to the pool, not a fixed percentage of the equity of the company.

Re: FounderPool: A community for founders to share risk and diversify their equity

#203

Post by jbgud » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 11:09 PM UTC

csentropy wrote: post #131

DevX101 wrote: post #126

My two cents: I think this is a fantastic idea and I've wanted to see something like this for years. That said, this is one of those things where unfortunately the reputation of the persons behind FounderPool matter a lot to me, and other founders. Yet there's no info on the site about who's running this. Founders are making a massive gamble putting their companies into this novel legal arrangement and I'd want to se…

All valid questions. We are adding more information about the company, the people and the business model of Founderpool. Founderpool does take a share of the pool of equity as platform fee, it will be transparent and will be publicly available. Thank you for the feedback.

Agreed, I'd also like to see more transparency - nevertheless, this is exciting. Good luck!

Re: FounderPool: A community for founders to share risk and diversify their equity

#204

Post by csentropy » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 10:35 PM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #189

geoburke wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why?

Adverse selection.

It's early, but lifestyle companies are <10% of our applicants. Mostly clustered around series A/post seed.

Re: FounderPool: A community for founders to share risk and diversify their equity

#205

Post by geoburke » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 11:13 PM UTC

wtvanhest wrote: post #193

csentropy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Founders and executives "play a role" in outcomes. The future of any company pre liquidation is uncertain. Agree with employee pools. That is the next step version for founderpool and it is literally the most requested!

I respectfully disagree. Founders blame the macro, but that blame is very often misplaced. Even at massive scale, similar business diverge in profitability due to strategy decisions during all market conditions, including pandemics and other blackswan events

Misdirected blame to preserve ego does not excuse the fact that the founders are the ones with the biggest impact on their own success. Access to a network incentivized to provide resources, fundraising, introductions, hiring, etc, can only bolster success probability.

Re: FounderPool: A community for founders to share risk and diversify their equity

#206

Post by geoburke » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 12:34 AM UTC

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #184

Or work for a well-paying company and invest heavily in index funds...

Agreed. Avoid the need for Founderpool by avoiding becoming a founder =P

Re: FounderPool: A community for founders to share risk and diversify their equity

#207

Post by geoburke » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 12:42 AM UTC

smabie wrote: post #182

tqi wrote: post #57

This sounds similar to Pando [1], which is doing income pooling for professional baseball players [2]: "Nobody has to pay a cent until they've made it to the majors and they've made $1.6 million. Then that guy has to kick 10% of his salary back to his pool mates." [1] https://www.pandopooling.com/baseball [2] https://www.npr.org/2019/10/25/773532516/some-baseball-playe...

Poker players to much the same thing and trade percent stakes before tournaments. And once again, modern portfolio theory triumphs!

I'm not a poker player, but today a friend analogized SIDE POTS; opt-in diversification with 3 more opportunities per hand. De-risks every player participating in the side pot.