anonymois

This is useful, thank you.

Starting a separate company to go after some of these market opportunities is a good idea; and one that I've thought about as well. I should have made it more clear that I wasn't trying to negotiate for them to give me their company, but to negotiate significant ownership interest in it.

Since I've left, they've asked me to come back and offered significantly higher salary, shown interest in licensing software from me that would take care of some of their business problems, and "would consider any other option" that I brought to them in order to come back and take the reins again.

I do have a track record of generating results for them, and their growth has completely stalled since I left.

Approaching this as a separate company in which I'd ask them to invest, I don't see much difference in the end result. I'd still want to hold significant ownership interest in the new company, I'd still be asking them for money to fund the venture, the risk appears to be similar to me. I am certain that I can significantly improve the value of the company because I already have paying customers lined up for this new functionality.

I agree that even asking for 50% after 10 years is ludicrous, but I want to consider ludicrous options.

The proposition that I'm making to them is to consider the value of holding 100% of the company as things go today, versus holding half (10%? 20%?) of the company at whatever value can be created between now and then.

I suppose a better way of approaching the question would be this: A client has been actively recruiting me to return and take over management of their software company. How can I maximise the outcome / what is possible via aggressive negotiation?

When I left their employ and they became a consulting client again, I was able to negotiate a pretty ridiculous seeming consulting arrangement with them and they have been very happy with it thus far. But it left me feeling like I wasn't aggressive enough in negotiations.

I'm not worried about licensing costs at the moment, thanks to BizSpark.

My product isn't in an industry that Microsoft seems very interested in, nor do I feel like it'd be wise to have the only potential acquirer be Microsoft (which is why I made the point about being concerned about acquisitions).

I am currently not under any form of NDA or noncompete. My plans aren't dependent on them at all; but I do feel this may end up being a valuable sales channel. However, you do make a good point about having clarity regarding ownership on products going forward. That is something that I will need to resolve.

As an aside, everyone at my current company has been very supportive of this move; we are all looking at ways that this can be mutually beneficial.

Ah, the rise of the armchair computer scientist. Gentlemen, we have truly arrived.

We had to do this recently as well. You have to get rid of him. A poor performer in your staff will drag down morale and destroy productivity. Keeping him on will send the message that you don't care about performance.

It is acceptable for you to fire an employee that is not performing at the expected level, in the same way it is acceptable for a new employee to leave after a short period of time if the job doesn't feel like a good fit.

Removing him will assure everyone else at the startup that you care about the quality of people you keep around; it's very hard to be dedicated if you know there are poor performers dragging things down.