Ryne Feulner

Founders, this is how you can incentivize your employees with a stock option plan. Relying on cash alone to incentivize talent at an early stage does not work. Also the risk is higher and you have limited funding. Your first hires will most likely take a pay cut to join and rely on equity to get skin in the game. Also, with no equity, some employees might stay for a paycheck but not for the long haul. There's a better way: Design your compensation strategy to empower your team. 1. Align employee goals with company success. 2. Offer stock options that grow with your company. 3. Communicate transparently about the value of equity. While doing that, set up your stock option plan properly. Valuation, hiring plan, equity pools, and vesting schedules. For valuation (490A) and vesting schedules, Carta is a great tool. The size of your option pool is something you need to spend more time on. 1. It's highly dependent on your hiring plan. 2. Define how many people, at what level (co-founder, exec, lead, etc), you will need until your next round of funding. 3. Structure the size of you option pool to match your needs as it will difficult to increase it between rounds. 4. Choose your vesting period - typically 4 years with 1-year cliff. Remember that equity grants in the form of stock options is about building a committed and invested team. Your compensation strategy should enhance employee loyalty, not just fill a role. It's easier than it sounds, you just need to put some real thoughts into it. Peter Walker and Carta published extensive data in this topic. Need some help? Feel free to DM me.

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Your best employee probably doesn't work at your company yet. Take a look at our most recent placements! DM me or comment if you'd like to see case studies for any of these, or if you have near term needs for roles such as: - Operations Leaders - Finance Leaders - Growth/Strategy Roles - Transformation Roles - Chief of Staff - Interim and On-Demand Consultants (GTM, Marketing, FP&A etc) I build leadership teams for companies. Talent is often a key factor in the value creation plan. These are the people who will take the business to the next level. #executivesearch #talent #GTM #privateequity #portfoliocompany

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TryNow.com Weekly Update ⚡ • Hosted a great dinner for 20+ brand operators in NYC last night with Eli Weiss. Thanks for coming out Jeff Hansen, Alice Kim, Vanessa Alvarez, Katrina Caraboolad, Ian Laya, Loris Spadaccini, Arjan Singh, Timothy W. Schifter, Laurie Mucciolo, Madeline Placik, Kyle Goldman, Nicole (Nico) ✨ S., John Wong, Michael De Santis, Adrian Aidid and many more. • If you've been following along, you know that we made a big shift towards product-led engineering towards the end of Q1. This means that as a company we spend more time describing problems rather than prescribing solutions (shout out to Steve Davis at TryNow for this sound articulation) and empower engineering to fully own the solution. By defining the problem in detail, solutions can more naturally flow out of that work. Shifts like this are by no means immediate, and this week capped off a month of very strong product-led engineering. Keep an eye out for improvements to self-service onboarding, enhancements to TryNow Insights Dashboard, and some impactful improvements to our automated capture process. A few companies that inspired this cultural shift towards product-led engineering are PostHog and Ramp, two very different companies that share a product development velocity that we admire. • Incredible week in NYC with Ian Schneider, Director of GTM at TryNow. At dinner last night, a prospective customer came up to us and shared praise for our sales process. He mentioned that we don't "sell", we don't apply any pressure, and we're the most customer-centric vendor he knows. Now, I know there's a lot of improvements we can and should make to our GTM motion to ensure we're always putting the customer at the center. But we're on our way. Keep it up, Ian 🤜 #TryBeforeYouBuy #TryNewThings #Shopify

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This San Franciscan has landed in the Big Apple for #NYTechWeek! Here’s why it was important to me to be out here this week and I view NYC as a sister city. ((scroll down for 2 events The Council is hosting today!)) 🏭🏥 Reminder: The Council Fund invests at Pre-seed in Software’s Third Act, the transformation of the essential economy. Our investments span healthcare and industrial sectors like manufacturing, logistics, construction. 🐂 I’m eternally bullish on NY & SF and hate how many pit the two cities against each other. The reality is that a lot of capital and talent flow back and forth between the cities. They need each other to thrive! 🗽🌁 Cities like NY & SF attract young and mid-career talent because of their population density, transient nature, beauty, and reputations as cities where someone new on the scene can make a name for themselves. For the areas we invest in, I’m *specifically* excited about NY because of: 🏗️ Closer proximity to industrial hubs which are scattered across the Midwest / Rust Belt 🏛️ Closer proximity to DC where a lot of regulation around VC, startups, healthcare, onshoring initiatives, and industrial sectors takes place 💰 Many of the large financial institutions that are backing hard tech focused funds and major healthcare initiatives are also headquartered here in NYC 🎯 We’ve got several startups here who are hitting it out of the park, like Dirac and Siena. This has further validated my belief in this ecosystem to support young companies! Today we are kicking off with 2 events on Day 1 of #NYTechWeek 👉 AI Demo Day: The Council, Next Wave NYC, Lynx Collective, Flybridge will host 8 founders and 200+ investors and founders for a pitch competition this evening! Luma: https://lnkd.in/gbdYiJMw 🔜 Can still join the waitlist! Small & Big VCs in Hard Tech: The Council joined General Catalyst, Lux Capital, Iron Prairie Ventures, AlleyCorp, House Of Ventures, Steel Atlas for 2 back to back panels on industrial innovation & collaboration across the capital stack Luma: https://lnkd.in/gj6D4-Au ⏰ Event has passed

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Fin Capital’s Fintech CEO Pulse Report is out! We surveyed over 50 CEOs and C-suite leaders of private companies from our portfolio and the broader fintech industry during June and July 2024 to get a quick pulse on what’s top of mind for fintech’s leaders. Here are some key takeaways: Optimism in the Air: More than 60% of CEOs reported being bullish or highly bullish on the fintech industry for the second half of 2024. Regulatory Changes on the Horizon: CEOs identified Cryptocurrency, Open Banking, and Buy Now Pay Later as the top three sectors likely to see increased regulation by the end of 2024. CEOs Want Business Development Support: Beyond capital and fundraising, business development support emerged as the top area where CEOs seek investor assistance.For more insights, including comments from my colleagues Ren Riley, Logan Allin, Matthew D. Mann, CFA, and Stephanie Perez, check out the full report here: https://lnkd.in/euHK8-9B

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It is such an honor to bookend my time at Lightspeed with the news that the 2024 Data-Driven VC Landscape report named me a top 20 thought leader and, more importantly, recognized Lightspeed as a top 20 data-driven VC firm for the second year in a row. I have been fortunate to be involved in building the data teams from the ground up at two of the top 20 data-driven firms, and it's gratifying to see former colleagues like Yuriy Groysman, Ilya Kirnos, and Chris Farmer at SignalFire also featured prominently. Special thanks to Dr. Andre Retterath for putting the report together! You can find the full report here: https://lnkd.in/gbBa2hdj The data-driven VC ecosystem has grown tremendously from just a handful of people a decade ago. While much progress has been made in leveraging data for sourcing, due diligence, portfolio support, and access, there is still much work to be done. I'm excited to see how this space continues to evolve. On a personal note, after over five and a half years at Lightspeed, I am stepping away from my role. I'm incredibly grateful to Lightspeed, especially Ravi Mhatre, Christopher Schaepe, Peter Nieh, Barry Eggers, Alex Taussig, Bradley Twohig, and Jeremy Liew for taking a chance on me years ago. It was a pleasure to work among world-class investors and operators across the globe to help founders build enduring companies. It filled me with a sense of wonder when everything aligned – when data pointed to a company's growth trajectory, and renowned Midas list investors pursued those founders. My thanks to the Lightspeed data team (Tin Kyaw, Eric Wayman, Len Frenkel, Radhika M.) and Carmen Buenrostro for making each day enjoyable, even as we navigated a pandemic while trying to bring data to venture capital. Over the next few months, I'll be spending time with family, traveling, and reconnecting with friends. I'm currently fascinated by using data-driven strategies for secondary investing and cohort-based customer acquisition financing. Please reach out if you'd like to discuss data and venture further. More to come!

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