Your team is the single biggest determining factor for your startup’s success. Building a great product, unlocking market potential, and attracting loyal customers require expertise and hustle from within. And, no, we do not just mean from within the founding team. Individuals across departments and seniority levels determine whether your company rises to stardom or flops miserably. 

To attract and retain the right talent, startups use employee ownership as an incentive scheme. Stock options have become tech’s currency. There is a common fear among founders that dilution resulting from a sizable stock option pool is too costly. Though, in reality, it is too costly not to incentivize your team properly. Competition for top talent is just too high to afford doing so. 

At Seedcamp, we firmly believe that employee ownership is an essential ingredient in advancing the European startup ecosystem. This is why, in the following two episodes of Legal Hour, we dive into the nitty-gritty of employee incentive schemes. Joined by Ian Shaw, a partner at Orrick who heads the London employee share schemes and incentives practice, Tom and Carlos discuss everything founders need to know about designing an effective option plan. 

In this first episode, the trio clarifies definitions and types of agreements needed to understand the space. Put the kettle on and listen in!


Links:
Ian Shaw - linkedin.com/in/ian-shaw-6ba480a9/ 
Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee
Tom Wilson - twitter.com/tom_wils 
Index Ventures Rewarding Talent Handbook - indexventures.com/rewardingtalent/handbook
Index Ventures OptionPlan - indexventures.com/rewardingtalent/handbook  
Seedcamp - www.seedcamp.com

Legal Hour with Tom & Carlos — Incentivising your team through Employee Share Schemes (Part 1)

This Much I Know is the podcast from Seedcamp, Europe’s seed fund.

Tune into hear the inside story from startup founders, investors and leading tech voices: the people who’ve built businesses, scaled globally, failed fantastically and learnt massively.

Seedcamp invests early in world-class founders attacking large, global markets and solving real problems using technology. Seedcamp provides the infrastructure to fast-track a founder’s vision and create value through immediate access to smart capital, a lifelong community of support and a global network built upon a decade’s experience backing exceptional talent.

Legal Hour with Tom & Carlos — Incentivising your team through Employee Share Schemes (Part 1)

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