Gaining Capital without Losing Control

From Forbes

A nice quick read from Jim Casparie, a founding principal of Angel Strategies (the first national organization for angel investors) about convertible notes.

As discussed, this is a great way for newish companies, which need an infusion of capital, to raise funds without having to prove that your growth will actually occur. An investor may be willing to lend money, with a belief in some upside. In the meantime you are paying them are regular debt return in interest. But at their option (in the case of good performance or when a venture capitalist is coming on board) to convert their investment to equity at a favorable price. In effect, you can price the conversion to get the maximum at the conversion date, say in two years when things are singing along! In the meantime the note should have an interest rate below what you would normally pay without this option.

Your CFO should be aware of these types of options as you approach the market for funds.

But It's My Baby!

Making money is not always the top focus of an entrepreneur. As described by Ann Meyer in the Chicago Tribune today, founders often fail to make the transition from startup with full control to a successful growing entity.

According to Harvard research cited by Meyer, only one in four founders are still holding the reins when a company goes public. This indicates that successful startups manage to overcome the founders grip most of the time. This is not surprising given the multiple levels of capital needed to get to the public realm. Usually a startup must go through several rounds of outside financing to build the prototype, establish production, setup template installments, and the many additional fazes of launching a business. These successful launches, the ones that go public, are greatly outweighed by companies that involve private takeouts (including acquistion) and the failed companies. The failed companies you don't hear about are the ones that suffer from founder fatigue and often implode from personnel departures.

An early offset to a strong founder is having a solid financial person in place to display and bolster the cash flow side of the business, as well as to foster good relationships with financial market partners. Your banker and accountant, along with outside investors can provide solid backing and support and help lead a recalcitrant founder down the correct financing path.

Remember, 10% of millions is a lot better than 100% of zero.