Monday, December 12, 2016

How to negociate your compensation package with a startup?


Its quite simple but most startup will make it look complex to make a better deal then you.




  1. First, know your market value (ex: 100K)
  2. Second, get the startup base salary offer (ex: 60K)
  3. Third, estimate the unpaid value: market value - base salary = update value (100-60=40K); usually the unpaid value is paid in stock with a premium
  4. Forth, get the last valuation of the company & number of shares total + double/tripple dipping clause details.
  5. Evaluate the risk factor to get the unpaid value in stock. Basically the stock option premium to ask.  
    1. Startup phase/maturity level (risk factor to apply)
      1. MVP = fucken risky, a big factor is required (ex: 100)
      2. Market Fit exploration = Fucken risky so a big factor too (50-100)
      3. Market validation phase, time to scale = 2-5
      4. Quality of the investor and network they bring = 2-100 (vary a lot)
      5. Market (hype or ...) = 2-10K
    2. Strategic location = 2-1000 (vary a lot)
    3. Type of startup
      1. Type of startup = unicorn (big factor), etc.  1-100
      2. Business type, B2B or B2C : 1-100
      3. Type of revenue (recurrent, retension
      4. Data driven = 1; non-data driven (get out)
      5. Working culture
      6. Collaboration and communication culture
    4. Management team
      1. Management team, advisor experience in place = 2-1000
      2. Team quality: 2-1K
      3. CEO focus = 2-1M
      4. Management Mission and Vision clarity
    5. Financing
      1. Delay before next founding required -> 2-1000
    6. Your value
      1. Role type = Tech has more value
      2. How rare is your skill = 1 to 100
  6. Evaluate the number of share you should claim (40k*25 = 1M; current valuation = 10M; stock = 10% ownership)

As you can see, its quite simple, its basic math.




Sunday, December 4, 2016

How to install a workcenter xerox on ubuntu?

  • # install dependencies
    • apt-get install libstdc++5 libstdc++5:i386
  • # download "Samsung Unified Driver Configurator" 
    • wget http://www.bchemnet.com/suldr/pool/debian/extra/su/suldr-keyring_2_all.deb
    • sudo dpkg -i suldr-keyring_2_all.deb
  • # install cups filters 
    • sudo apt-get update
    • sudo apt-get install cups-filters
  • Install driver
  • then follow this https://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-2091960.html
    • sudo update db
    • locate wc3210.ppd
    • cp wc3210.ppd ~/Desktop
    • locate rastertosamsungspl 
    • copy rastertosamsungspl  ~/Desktop
    • cd ~/Desktop
    • sudo cp rastertosamsungspl /usr/lib/cups/filter
    • open systemsettings in ubuntu 12.04.2 and choose printing
      add new printer- network printer - (it will find the workcentre with its IPafter about ten seconds, be patient!) - click that; then "forward" (searching for drivers wait till "choose driver appears), click "provide ppd file" and navigate to your desktop where you'll find the previously saved wc3210.ppd
      h) click apply and print test page - you're done!

Saturday, October 22, 2016

What is optimal for engineer/entrepreneur/intrapreneur, be optimist or pessimist?

Since many years, I have noticed a disturbing appearance patterns, my network (engineer/entrepreneurs) project a more pessimist image than my wife network (sales/managers) who project a more optimist one.

I did start researching on the subject and found reassuring studies. Basically sales people are more likely to perform if they are optimist and engineer/entrepreneurs more likely to success if they are defensive optimist. The 2 groups need to use opposite strategy to better perform. An optimist should relax and pessimist should focus on his weakness to better perform. 



Concerning entrepreneur and life in general, I think the optimal configuration is the combination of both: optimist in appearance but pessimist under the hood. For sales, knowing that appearance is critical, I think people should show more the optimists part but need to work hard under the hood (pessimist to keep improving). For entrepreneur/engineer its the same but need to remove the optimist mask more often to work.  
Image result for duck pedaling image

Now, I better understand why natural selection didn't eradicate pessimist or our monkey brain



The best article I found on the subject is "The Positive Power of Negative Thinking" from Adam Grant. 

Here are the article highlights sections:

Although evidence shows that happiness often makes us more successful by fostering energy and creativity, it can backfire for defensive pessimists. When strategic optimists and defensive pessimists threw darts, they did equally well overall, but were most effective under opposite conditions.
...
If you want to achieve a major goal, conventional wisdom says to think positive. Picture yourself delivering the perfect presentation, and absorb the energy of the audience. Envision the ideal job interview, and imagine yourself on cloud nine when you get the offer. Although these strategies sound compelling, it turns out that they often backfire. Many of us are more successful when we focus on the reasons that we’re likely to fail.
....
Strategic optimists and defensive pessimists succeed under different circumstances. If you’re a defensive pessimist, or you’re attempting to motivate one, the strategies that prove effective are often the reverse of what you expect.
...
“Before long, I began to realize that they were doing so well because of their pessimism… negative thinking transformed anxiety into action.” By imagining the worst-case scenario, defensive pessimists motivate themselves to prepare more and try harder.
...
If you’re the kind of person who’s always telling other people to look on the bright side, you might want to reconsider. Whether people succeed is not a matter of thinking positively or negatively, but rather whether they choose the strategies that match their thinking styles. As psychologists Heidi Grant Halvorson and Tory Higgins write in Focus, “It’s the fit that counts.”
...
And if you’re a defensive pessimist, when preparing for a performance that really matters, you might want to list your weaknesses instead of your strengths, and drink a glass of anxiety rather than a shot of confidence.

Ultimately, both styles are deadly at their extremes. Pessimism becomes fatalistic, and optimism becomes toxic. The key is to find the sweet spot, the more moderate ranges that combine the benefits of both approaches. In the words of Richard Pine, “The best chief executives—and that includes presidents—know that too much optimism is a dangerous thing, that wise and productive leadership means striking a balance between optimists’ blue sky view of the world and pessimists’ more clear-eyed assessment of any given situation. Take one part salesman, one part inventor, one part lawyer, one part safety engineer, stir gently and you’ve got a great chief executive.”

Optimists tend to thrive in jobs that require resilience and perseverance. For example, in insurance sales jobs with high rejection rates, optimists sold 37% more than pessimists over a 2-year period.

At the same time, we need pessimists to anticipate the worst and prepare us all for it. On average, research indicates that people who never worry have lower job performance than those who worry from time to time. Studies also show that when entrepreneurs are highly optimistic, their new ventures bring in less revenue and grow more slowly, and when CEOs are highly optimistic, they take on more risky debt and swing for the fences more often, putting their companies in jeopardy. (This may be why there are fewer optimistic CFOs than CEOs.)