Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing.

If you have too many former founders with stock who no longer work at the startup, then you may need to clean up your cap table. 

Due to a lack of a vesting schedule, those founders took substantial tranches of stock without staying long enough to build meaningful value.

If this stock amount is significant, then it will hurt the business later.

That stock needs to be set aside for future employees or to reduce the impact of dilution from future investors.

To resolve this issue, go to the departed founders and offer to buy them out.

In the negotiations, you can offer them a price which matches their contribution.

If they decline, then you can threaten to shut the business down in which case the stock will be worthless.

Since you’ve built a business, they will recognize this as a real threat because you can start a new one without them.

The old saying in the startup world is, “10% of something is better than 100% of nothing”.

Most founders will recognize they have something of value and will not want to see it go to zero.

It’s important to clean up the cap table early on and not let it persist.

Thank you for joining us for the Startup Funding Espresso where we help startups and investors connect for funding.

Let’s go startup something today.
___________________________________

For more episodes from Investor Connect, please visit the site at: http://investorconnect.org 

Check out our other podcasts here: https://investorconnect.org/ 
For Investors check out: https://tencapital.group/investor-landing/ 
For Startups check out: https://tencapital.group/company-landing/ 
For eGuides check out: https://tencapital.group/education/ 
For upcoming Events, check out https://tencapital.group/events/ 

For Feedback please contact info@tencapital.group  

Music courtesy of Bensound

In this episode, Hall welcomes Jeremy Carter, Managing Partner at Soterra Capital.

With offices in Austin, Texas, and Louisville, Kentucky, Soterra Capital invests in small to mid-size private companies with capable management teams and fundamentally strong operations. They are seeking businesses with enterprise values from $5 to $30 million with the capacity to underwrite larger transactions under the right circumstances. They currently have three portfolio companies under management. Soterra Capital is industry agnostic, but have unique experience in manufacturing, chemicals, distribution, supply chain, energy, transportation, real estate, and technology. They are generally focused in the midwest and the southern U.S. but are open to opportunities anywhere in the country. 

Jeremy has spent over two decades managing a wide range of businesses and product programs. He is also the CFO of MXD Process, a manufacturer of chemical processing systems and portfolio company of Soterra Capital. Prior to that he was a managing partner with Baines Creek Capital, where he oversaw private equity and special situation investments and fundraising.

Jeremy advises entrepreneurs and investors, and discusses what he thinks will be the biggest change in the industry in five years. He also shares some of the challenges investors and startups face.

You can visit Soterra Capital at www.soterracap.com, and via LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/company/soterra-capital.  

Jeremy can be contacted via email at jcarter@soterracap.com, and via LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/jeremyc100. 

Music courtesy of Bensound.