First-time founders

Reading path

• Bootstrapping versus raising over a ten-year horizon

  Most new firms start with little outside money. What Kauffman Firm Survey and federal survival data say about funding choices when the horizon is ten years.

• Choosing a startup program that fits: a decision guide

  Batch programs, incubators and community programs differ in length, terms and fit. What research reports, and ten questions to ask before applying.

• Coworking and community: what the research shows about staying power

  Does working among other founders help a company last? Two published studies, what they measured, and how to use a shared space or a founder community well.

• Encore founders: starting a company after fifty

  What Census Bureau research says about founder age, prior industry experience and prior business ownership, and what a founder past fifty can plan around.

• Founder age and growth: what the Census study of 2.7 million founders found

  Mean founder age rises with how fast firms grow. What a Census Bureau study of 2.7 million founders measured, and what it cannot say about one founder.

• From first filing to first payroll: what the timing data says

  How many business filings become employers, and what a panel of 2004 startups earned by year eight. The public data on timing, and where it runs out.

• Shutdown data and what survivors do differently

  Federal closure data for new businesses, how the first-year drop compares across opening years, and what the survivors measurably do differently.

• The longevity paradox: sprint weekly, endure for a decade

  Early work runs on weekly sprints, yet public survival data runs on decades. What federal survival curves say about pacing a company for the long haul.

• The time between funding rounds: what Carta data reports

  Carta reports that the median wait between rounds has stretched past 600 days. The figures, who they cover, and how to turn them into a runway question.

• Using SBA resource partners: SBDC, SCORE, WBC and VBOC

  Federal business counseling centers, volunteer advisers, women's centers and veteran centers. What each does, who it serves, and how to find one.

• Women and immigrant founders: what the Census and research data show

  Census Bureau counts of women-owned and minority-owned firms, and peer-reviewed research on immigrant entrepreneurship, with the limits of each source.

• A one-page positioning statement

  A five-part method for writing down who your product is for, what it replaces and why it differs, with an invented example and a three-buyer test.

• A weekly operating rhythm for a founder

  How a founder can set a repeating week with a plan, protected work blocks, an admin block and a review, borrowing the idea of fixed-length cycles from Scrum.

• Acquisitions, acqui-hires and wind-downs: the exits to recognize

  How selling a company, selling its assets, an acqui-hire and a wind-down differ, and the votes, filings and records each can involve, for first-time founders.

• Angels, micro-funds and funds: what the rules say and what to ask

  Founders talk about angels, micro-funds and funds as different investors. This article sets out what US securities rules say about each and what to ask.

• B2B SaaS: how the model works and what it asks of a first company

  What business-to-business software as a service is, how it earns money, and the reliability, security, contract and support work it asks of a first company.

• Books and basic accounting for a software startup

  What keeping books means for a small software company, what the IRS says about records, separate accounts and accounting methods, and what to ask an accountant.

• Burnout: recognizing it and what to change

  What a US occupational-health institute says burnout is and is not, the six work-design areas a UK regulator ties to stress, and when to talk to a professional.

• Cap table basics for founders

  What a capitalization table records, how options, the option pool and unconverted SAFEs appear in it, and what to ask your counsel before you sign.

• Choosing a co-founder, or deciding not to

  A co-founder is one way to cover missing skills, and the only one that makes someone an owner. How to list the work, test the fit and write things down.

• Choosing an entity: LLC or C corporation

  What an LLC and a C corporation are, how each is created and taxed in the United States, and the questions to bring to counsel and a tax professional.

• Choosing your first channels

  Pick one or two places to look for first customers: start from the buyer, score what each channel asks of you and write each test down before you run it.

• Cold outreach that follows CAN-SPAM

  What the U.S. CAN-SPAM Act and the FTC compliance guide say about commercial email, quoted from the sources, with questions to bring to counsel.

• Contractors and employees: the classification tests

  How US tax and wage agencies, California and the UK decide whether a worker is an employee or a contractor, and what to bring to your own counsel.

• Customer evidence and reference calls

  What records show a customer relationship, what a reference call is, and what the FTC endorsement guides and review rule say when a customer's words go public.

• Customer references and case studies without breaking FTC rules

  What the FTC Endorsement Guides say about customer quotes, case studies and connections to customers, quoted from the rules, with questions to take to counsel.

• Fake-door and concierge tests

  Two ways to learn whether people will act before you build: a page for a feature that does not exist, and a service you deliver by hand. With an honesty note.

• Feedback loops that reach the product

  How a small SaaS team can collect customer feedback, sort it and turn it into product decisions, with a weekly routine that needs no research staff.

• Founder equity splits and vesting

  How founder shares are issued, what vesting is and how a repurchase condition works, with questions for counsel. It gives no recommended split.

• Founder IP assignment and confidentiality agreements

  Who owns code and inventions made by founders, and what the copyright, patent and trade secret statutes say about assignment and confidentiality.

• Funding a software startup: the routes and what each asks of you

  A plain-language map of the routes to money for a software startup, from customer revenue to grants, loans, investment and crowdfunding, and what each asks.

• Insurance for a software startup: what exists and what to ask

  The kinds of business insurance a US small-business agency lists, what regulators say on workers' compensation and cyber risk, and questions for an agent.

• Kill criteria: deciding in advance when to stop

  How to write down, before you start, the evidence that would make you stop, change direction or continue, and why that decision belongs to your calmer self.

• Landing page tests you can read

  How a technical founder can plan and read a two-version landing page test using the NIST statistics handbook, with invented numbers and no benchmarks.

• Mapping the alternatives a customer already uses

  A method for listing everything a customer does today instead of buying your product, from spreadsheets to doing nothing, and reading the gaps honestly.

• Marketplaces: the two-sided start-up problem

  How a two-sided marketplace works, why the first buyers and sellers are hard to win together, and the payments, trust and legal questions the model adds.

• Matching a funding route to a stage: a decision guide

  A decision guide for early founders: the main routes to capital, what each asks of you, and the questions that connect a route to what you can show today.

• Offer letters: what they should state

  What an offer letter is, the terms it usually states and what at-will means in the United States, plus questions to put to your own counsel before you send.

• Onboarding a new team member: what to prepare before day one

  A founder's preparation list for a new hire: access, equipment, paperwork, first tasks and people, with examples of the legal paperwork in the US and the UK.

• Open-source licenses inside a commercial product

  What the MIT, Apache 2.0, GPL and AGPL license texts say about copying, shipping and offering software, and the questions to bring to counsel.

• Ordering a pre-seed evidence pack

  How to arrange the records behind a founder's claims into one indexed set, in data room folder order, and what to ask counsel.

• Paying a first team before funding: the options and what each risks

  Ways early founders pay first helpers without outside funding: fixed fees, wages, deferred pay and shares, what each risks and what to put in writing.

• Pricing a first SaaS: value, packaging and the questions to ask

  How to find where value sits in a first SaaS, package it into plans, and which questions to put to customers, billing platforms and advisors.

• Privacy law basics for a small product

  What the GDPR, the CCPA, the COPPA Rule and the FTC Act say about personal data, from the primary sources, with questions to bring to counsel.

• Product management for a first SaaS: roles, backlog and decisions

  What product management is in a company of one to three people: three jobs, two ways to keep a backlog, and a decision log that outlasts memory.

• Product-led and sales-led growth: choosing between them

  What product-led and sales-led growth mean, what each asks of a small team and its product, and a set of questions for choosing a motion without benchmarks.

• Reading a term sheet, line by line

  A walk through the sections of a published model term sheet for a priced round, what each part is for, and the questions to ask your own counsel about it.

• Retention basics for a first SaaS

  What retention measures in a subscription business, how to calculate customer and revenue retention with a handful of accounts, and what to do with the result.

• SAFE or convertible note: how the two instruments differ

  How a SAFE and a convertible note differ, from debt and interest to what happens on a sale, with the questions to bring to your own counsel.

• Stock options for early employees: what an option is and what to ask

  What a stock option is, how US tax sources describe the two main types, and the questions an early employee or a founder can bring to counsel before a grant.

• Structured interviews for a small team

  What a structured interview is, as a US federal personnel agency describes it, and how a small team can build one: shared questions, anchors and scoring.

• Terms of service and privacy policy: what each document is for

  A terms of service is a contract and a privacy policy is a notice. What the primary sources say about each, and the questions to bring to counsel.

• The 83(b) election and its deadline

  What the 83(b) election is, what the statute and the IRS say about its 30-day deadline and how it is filed, and the questions to bring to a tax professional.

• The tax calendar a US software startup should know exists

  What the IRS tax calendar lists for a small company, how its due dates are worded, and the questions to bring to a tax professional. General information only.

• Three ways to start: an idea, a skill, a problem you have lived

  Founders begin from an idea, a skill or a problem they have lived. This article sets the three starting points side by side and names what each skips.

• Trademark name clearance before you commit

  What the USPTO and the federal trademark statute say about similar marks, clearance searches and likelihood of confusion, with questions for an attorney.

• What a first-time founder should settle first

  A checklist of decisions a first-time SaaS founder can settle early: the problem, the owners, the legal form, who owns the code, and who reviews your work.

• Working through a disagreement with a co-founder

  A general process for a co-founder disagreement, what mediation is according to a US agency and a federal court, and whom to ask for help.

• Writing a landing page that says what the product does

  A section-by-section plan for a first landing page in plain language, with accessibility basics from W3C and Digital.gov and a check you can run without code.

• Your first hire: what to settle before you write the job

  A decision framework for a founder's first hire: the work, the working arrangement, the money, the equity question and how you will judge the result.