Mike Moyer - Slicing Pie: Funding Your Company Without Funds

I would like to start a business with you. I look forward to working with you to find and exploit opportunity in the market that our slow-moving competition has overlooked or is too arrogant to bother going after. I cant wait to steal their market share by creating a product or service that lures their customers away en masse.

I hope we can poach the best employees away from their day jobs or other start-ups. Im sure their former employers will weep, but theyll get over it.

Im sure our irreverent approach to marketing and advertising will ruffle a few feathers along the way, but thats the idea. I want our videos to go viral so we can beat those fat-cat marketing budgets from the establishment.

Its going to be fun to watch our success and see the impact we have on the market. Our competition, unable to keep up with us, will wither and die. Thats okay. Its not personalits just business.

Before we start, however, I want to get a few things straight:

When it comes to the competition there are no holds barred. When it comes to our company and our team, however, we need to treat everyone fairly and honestly.

In business, some people may get burned. Its okay to burn the competition. Its not okay to burn each other.

Most start-up books are about breaking the rules. This one is about making them. It outlines rules of conduct about how we will treat one another when it comes to the equity in our start-up company.

Equity in the business will ultimately reward us for our individual contributions to success, when we get there. So dividing the equity fairly is critical. We need a few rules. The reason we need these rules is simple:

Fairness is More Fun.

In spite of the setbacks, the struggles, the stress, the long hours, the hard work and even the occasional failure, start-ups are fun as long as everyone participating in the start-up is treated fairly.

When everyone feels that they are getting what they deserve, everyone can get along and move the business forward as a team.

Backstabbing, greed and politicking, on the other hand, suck the fun out of a start-up faster than your companys rogue article gets deleted from Wikipedia.

Ask an old entrepreneur to reminisce about the good times and she will tell you about the high-pressure, the late nights, the victories and the defeats. Each story is exciting and inspirational. The story is always different.

Ask an old entrepreneur about the bad times and he will tell you how he was burned by a partner or an investor or a co-worker. The story is always the same.

No matter what happens in the coming months and years, I want this to be one of the good times.

So lets agree on a few basic ground rules about how to treat each other fairly before the money and emotions get in the way. I want to treat you fairly and I want to be treated fairly. Thats my only agenda.

Lets begin