It may be my misunderstanding, but isn't 11% ridiculously low?
As I founder, if I sold almost 90% of MY company along the way, I would feel like I didn't do good enough job of building it without relying too much on other investors.
As I founder, if I sold almost 90% of MY company along the way, I would feel like I didn't do good enough job of building it without relying too much on other investors.
But then again depends what and why your doing it. If that 11% is worth enough to you (and the company is otherwise healthy), then you might not even care.
For example if your market requires large capital investment, e.g. insurance, banking, you could expect to part with a good proportion of your equity at every raise.
If you're a non-capital-intensive business and you still ended up with 10% at IPO I really wouldn't beat yourself up too much... You still did what very few people in the world have managed.
It perplexes me why such obvious realities are hard to grasp amongst budding entrepreneurs
Where does that misplaced pride come from?
Form the asset, sell the asset. Don't get married to it!