As a founder myself, I would love to have exposure to the other startups in my investors' portfolio and more importantly, I want other founders to have exposure to my company!
Upside offers an attractive option to gain a small amount of exposure and to recognize the help that founders provide other founders. I know a number of other founders who have helped me get where I am, but unfortunately they don't have any exposure to our stock. Typically, the logistical headaches and liquidity needs would stop most people in their tracks but Upside simplifies that process substantially.
Regarding the conflict of interest concerns, I don't agree at all. I personally help the other founders in my network generously and most CEOs that I know are very generous with their time as well. To have a formal recognition of that would be awesome and if any of us are successful, it's nice to know that we played a tiny piece in it.
Compared to typical VC arrangements, Upside offers something new that aligns interests of everybody involved. It's an innovative approach to an old-style business and delivers real value to entrepreneurs.
Most importantly though: Founders should always pick a VC based on the partner with whom they'll be working. Kent is one of the best, smartest, hardest working, and most importantly fair and honest. Not all VCs are alike and Kent is a class act.
Full disclosure: Kent was on my board of directors and I endorse him so strongly that I am LP in Upside VC.
That's really interesting, but to be fair, did you need that financial exposure to help out? From what I saw on the VC side, the solution was usually an advisory role or sometimes an explicit board one to recognize a particularly valuable individual. Beyond that, I wonder if the incentives here run into the "Israeli day care" problem - by putting a financial price on what was previously help, more freely offered, you might have the adverse effect of making it more transactional.
That being said, best of luck to Kent - experiments are a good thing, and the marketing alone is a good start.
This is kind of tangential to the submission, but I just read through the "Israeli day-care" paper[1], and thought it was quite interesting. The existence of the fine clearly shifted the equilibrium, but I wonder whether or not the introduction of the fine partway through the start of the year contributed anything to the increase of late parents. Redoing the experiment with the addition of a third group of daycare centers, where the fine is specifically laid out at the beginning of the year, might shed some insight into that?
Comments
As a founder myself, I would love to have exposure to the other startups in my investors' portfolio and more importantly, I want other founders to have exposure to my company!
Upside offers an attractive option to gain a small amount of exposure and to recognize the help that founders provide other founders. I know a number of other founders who have helped me get where I am, but unfortunately they don't have any exposure to our stock. Typically, the logistical headaches and liquidity needs would stop most people in their tracks but Upside simplifies that process substantially.
Regarding the conflict of interest concerns, I don't agree at all. I personally help the other founders in my network generously and most CEOs that I know are very generous with their time as well. To have a formal recognition of that would be awesome and if any of us are successful, it's nice to know that we played a tiny piece in it.
Compared to typical VC arrangements, Upside offers something new that aligns interests of everybody involved. It's an innovative approach to an old-style business and delivers real value to entrepreneurs.
Most importantly though: Founders should always pick a VC based on the partner with whom they'll be working. Kent is one of the best, smartest, hardest working, and most importantly fair and honest. Not all VCs are alike and Kent is a class act.
Full disclosure: Kent was on my board of directors and I endorse him so strongly that I am LP in Upside VC.
That's really interesting, but to be fair, did you need that financial exposure to help out? From what I saw on the VC side, the solution was usually an advisory role or sometimes an explicit board one to recognize a particularly valuable individual. Beyond that, I wonder if the incentives here run into the "Israeli day care" problem - by putting a financial price on what was previously help, more freely offered, you might have the adverse effect of making it more transactional.
That being said, best of luck to Kent - experiments are a good thing, and the marketing alone is a good start.
This is kind of tangential to the submission, but I just read through the "Israeli day-care" paper[1], and thought it was quite interesting. The existence of the fine clearly shifted the equilibrium, but I wonder whether or not the introduction of the fine partway through the start of the year contributed anything to the increase of late parents. Redoing the experiment with the addition of a third group of daycare centers, where the fine is specifically laid out at the beginning of the year, might shed some insight into that?
[1]http://rady.ucsd.edu.prx.us.teleport.to/faculty/directory/gn...
I help out other founders regardless of financial exposure -- which is precisely why having that recognition would be great.