BrightFunnel founder Nadim Hossain discusses the psychological difficulty and skill requirements of founder-CEO succession.
Insight
Hossain: Board members who refuse to consider exits should be fired
“Any board member that tells you they won't consider an exit is should be fired, right? Your job as a board member is to consider the value of the company. I'm representing every shareholder at this point, not just myself or the investors and employees. So you …”
Insight
Hossain: Startup founders should assume their company will be worth nothing
“Now, as a startup, as a founder, you should think of it as it's probably going to be worth nothing, right? That's the way to think about really any founder. You shouldn't be thinking about the outcome.”
Insight
Hossain: Early venture rounds cause ~30% dilution via investors and option pools
“In every round, you know, think of it as a 30% dilution event because your investor is you know, they want to own a certain percent of their company. That's usually about, you know, again, people give ranges of the series A level about they want to own 20% aft…”
Insight
Hossain: SaaS companies under $10M ARR typically see 12-to-18-month payback
“You want to be able to acquire in SAS a customer that's going to pay back over 12 months, ideally. At this stage, a little bit earlier you know you know, we're under ten million, I mentioned ARR, so typically, you know, if you're 12 months, you're doing really…”
Insight
Hossain: Tech founders should use domain expertise to trade public equities
“If you're building an expertise in a domain, in my case, it's SAS and sort of generally enterprise software, you probably know more about it than the vast majority of people. So while you shouldn't randomly be day trading, you probably have good instincts if y…”
Assertion Contradicted
Hossain: Founder-CEO transitions typically occur 6-7 years in before an IPO
“You look at Crunchbase you know, you see typically the transitions happen six to seven years in at least the ones you hear about the ones that, you know, the company goes out of business, obviously, you transition into oblivion but typically it is a little bit…”