Waarom u zich geen zorgen hoeft te maken over verdunning tijdens het opstarten

Elk oprichtend team zal in zekere mate verdunning ervaren.

Je zamelt geld in, dus je hebt een kleiner percentage van je bedrijf in handen - en je maakt je er zorgen over.

Niet doen.

Je moet verdunning plannen, maar dat betekent niet dat dit je eerste zorg zou moeten zijn. Je hebt grotere vissen om te bakken.

En in veel gevallen is het grotendeels buiten uw controle.

Mensen raken verstrikt en maken zich zorgen over verwatering, met name in het begin, in plaats van zich te concentreren op wat echt belangrijk is.

Kijk, er zijn slechts vier manieren waarop je er meer van kunt ervaren dan je verwacht:

1) Je verwachtingen zijn uitgeschakeld.

Houd jezelf niet voor de gek: het is een lange weg van concept naar een levensvatbare onderneming.

And that goes for unicorns too. The longer the road, the more capital required to get down that road, the lower your valuation. Trust me.

So, set reasonable expectations when estimating your venture’s value. Don’t undervalue it, just don’t shoot too high.

One of two things can happen, and both of them are bad: You don’t raise smart money, or you can’t live up to the excessive expectations you’ve now transferred to investors.

2) The quality isn’t there.

Valuation, and hence dilution, is a function of risk. The quality and soundness of your venture — in terms of thesis, strategy, early execution, and plan — drives potential investors’ risk assessments.

Do your research as they would, consider the risk factors, and develop your venture in a way that mitigates risk as much as possible. Overinvest in quality early on.

3) You’re just not good enough.

Someone smart once told me, “Investors back teams more than ideas."

I totally agree. Don’t kid yourself about leading your startup forward by yourself — bring in help early and often. No one will fault you for it. It’s exactly the opposite.

Doing this also increases dilution, since anyone worth having early on it worth equity, but it’s essential if you’re serious about moving your idea forward.

4) You didn’t do what you said you would do.

Don’t make promises lightly. And if you do make them, be sure to keep them.

If you can’t keep them on your own, get help. This is an obvious idea in business, but it’s more intense in the startup world. Handicap your abilities and progress well. The more accurate your predictions, the more credibility you have. And credibility drives valuation.

Keep Moving Fast

Holding onto equity, waiting for some seminal moment? That’s irresponsible.

When sophisticated seed investors put money into a startup, they expect the company to spend that money fast.

Invest it well, but do it fast. They want to see you get to the next round, secure their equity, and figure out what it’s worth. That’s how investors view it. And if they don’t, it’s how they should.

If investors give someone $50,000 and wait two years for something to happen, they worry. If they don’t, they should. They’ll likely never see that money again.

But say they give someone $100,000 (out of a total of $500,000 that they’ve raised). In five months, the startup raises another two or three million dollars — and now it’s priced at two or three times what they paid — then the investors are feeling good. If not, they should be.

In this situation, they think: “This founder is able to convince other people, and the product has made progress. The team is good, and he or she can go out and convince others that the company is more valuable than it was five months ago."

You have to work fast and spend money fast. Worrying about dilution will slow you down and wind up being counterproductive.

Focus On Structure

If you want to lessen dilution, structure your business well.

Only take on investors whose resumes add to the quality of your venture. Decide against numerous investors, just because they will pay more than they should for a small stake in your business.

What’s better: Taking on 40 investors who will do nothing for you down the road or taking on three to four quality investors who can help when you start negotiating with a VC?

Think ahead. And structure your business well from the start.

Know You’ll Survive

Of course, you want to try to avoid dilution.

But sometimes, there’s no getting out of it if you want to move forward. Among serious startup founders, there’s very rarely a situation when one would sacrifice seeing an idea brought to market in exchange for a few more percentage points.

Do you want to see your company launched or not?

Some founders spend a lot of time thinking about these things. It’s unnecessary. The price of your shares is the direct result of your own abilities, the product, and your team. You can control those things. The rest is up to market forces, and you can’t control those.

Focus on what you can affect instead of worrying about getting too diluted. It happens to everyone. If you’ve structured your business the right way, you’ll be just fine in the long run.

This story is published in The Startup, Medium’s largest entrepreneurship publication followed by 291,182+ people.

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