Intermediate exits
Acqui-hire
An acqui-hire is an acquisition where the buyer's primary goal is to hire the target company's team, not acquire its product.
#team
21 results
Glossary
Intermediate equity
ESOP - Employee Stock Option Pool
An ESOP is a reserved pool of equity set aside to grant stock options to employees, advisors, and early hires as non-cash compensation.
Intermediate equity
Good Leaver / Bad Leaver
Good leaver and bad leaver clauses define how a departing employee's unvested and vested equity is treated based on why they left.
Intermediate team
Performance Improvement Plan (PIP)
A PIP is a formal document that outlines an employee's performance gaps and sets a time-bound plan to correct them before termination.
Beginner equity
Stock Options
Stock options give employees the right to buy company shares at a fixed strike price. ISOs and NSOs are the two main types used by startups.
Beginner equity
Vesting Cliff
A vesting cliff is a threshold period - typically one year - before which no equity vests, protecting companies from early team departures.
Beginner equity
Vesting
Equity vesting is how founders and employees earn their shares over time, ensuring long-term alignment between the team and the company's success.
Guides
Intermediate product
13 min How to Build a Startup Product Roadmap
Learn how to build a product roadmap that drives alignment without stifling adaptability - from prioritization to stakeholder communication.
Intermediate team
10 min How to Build a Compensation Framework
Learn how to create a fair, transparent compensation framework that helps you hire, retain, and build trust across your startup team.
Beginner team
12 min How to Find a Co-Founder
How to find, evaluate, and lock in the right co-founder - where to look, what to test for, and the conversations you must have before signing anything.
Intermediate team
14 min How to Make Your First 5 Hires
A practical guide to hiring your first employees - how to define the roles, run the process, set comp, and avoid the mistakes that derail early teams.
Intermediate equity
12 min How to Negotiate an Equity Offer at a Startup
Understand every component of a startup equity offer - and learn exactly what to negotiate, what to ask, and how to evaluate your upside.
Beginner team
8 min How to Run Effective 1:1s
A step-by-step guide to running 1:1 meetings that build trust, surface blockers, and help you develop every person on your team.
Intermediate operations
10 min How to Set Company OKRs That Actually Work
A practical guide to writing and running OKRs in your startup - from setting the right objectives to weekly check-ins, mid-quarter reviews, and retros.
Intermediate team
8 min How to Run Performance Reviews
A practical guide to running quarterly performance reviews at an early-stage startup—without the overhead that makes traditional annual reviews useless.
Intermediate team
10 min How to Build a Hiring Process
A step-by-step guide to building a repeatable, structured hiring process—from job spec to signed offer—that reduces bias and bad hires.
Concepts
Beginner team
Radical Candor
Radical Candor is Kim Scott's management framework that combines caring personally for people with challenging them directly and honestly.
Intermediate team
Situational Leadership
Situational Leadership teaches managers to adapt their style - directing, coaching, supporting, or delegating - based on each employee's needs.
Articles
Intermediate equity
9 min Equity for Early Employees Explained
How to structure stock option grants for early hires - covering grant sizes, vesting, strike prices, and how to communicate equity fairly.
Intermediate team
13 min How to Build and Run a Remote Startup Team
Remote is the default for software startups in 2025. Here's how to build culture, hire globally, and run operations across time zones.
Beginner team
12 min How Startup Culture Gets Built
Culture isn't ping-pong tables - it's what behaviors get rewarded and punished. Here's how founders actually build it.