(PS: This chapter has been slightly modified)

[Heavy! BlueStar Technology, a start-up company owned by BlueSpace, has just completed a pre-A round of financing of 77 million yuan, with a valuation of 1.1 billion yuan!! ——"Internet Reference News"

[Winter is gone? For the first time since the Internet entered the cold winter, a start-up with a valuation of more than 1 billion has appeared! ——"Invest Today"

[BlueSpace, a rookie social networking site, received 77 million pre-A round of financing, which was led by Tengxun and followed by SoftBank Capital, IDG, and venture capital funds. ——"Financial News"

[The most powerful founder in history was born, and the founder of the pre-A round of financing of the BlueSpace website made the capital willing to accept the harsh conditions that were almost impossible to accept, which is almost a legendary financing case! ——"Arc Search Network"

[BlueSpace website received 77 million financing valuation of 1.1 billion, founder Luo Sheng, a student of Fuda University, a rising rookie in the Internet industry! ] ——"Science and Technology Daily"

After the news of Bluestar Technology's completion of the pre-A round of financing spread, the company became popular in the industry, and Luo Sheng also became popular.

The founder is a college student, with a valuation of 1.1 billion, and the first company with a valuation of 1 billion after the Internet bubble.

This financing is a critical date for the Internet industry, and more and more industry insiders, especially entrepreneurs, see hope.

The cold winter may really be over, and the Internet is about to usher in a new stage of vigorous development.

……

With the completion of this pre-A round of financing, the company officially set up an option pool reservation, after getting this financing, Luo Sheng did not immediately consider expansion, and the problem he most wanted to solve now was the company's operation and management.

To put it simply, it's people.

If this problem is not solved, once it enters the fast lane of rapid development, the company will inevitably have a chaotic situation in operation and management.

Next, the company will really enter the right track of development, and the subsequent staff expansion will be oriented to adults, and the company's current dormitory culture must be removed.

Development has entered a new stage, and it is necessary to enter a new way of management.

It's not enough to just shout slogans, the current start-up team is basically students and fresh graduates, and the enthusiasm is naturally high now, but without a good incentive mechanism, this enthusiasm will not last long, especially after the company expands and recruits adults.

After the completion of the pre-A round of financing, the company's option pool reservation has been set, but how to effectively use it and how to use it reasonably is really brain-breaking.

Obviously, the company is in urgent need of a legal professional, and although Luo Sheng also knows a little about legal affairs, this is not his specialty.

For this reason, he made a phone call to his mother for help.

Luo Sheng's mother is engaged in this profession, and is the top elite of the industry, originally he had an idea at that moment, that is, to invite his mother to the company to serve as the chief legal officer, CLO, but he gave up decisively without thinking too much, which is no different from asking a Buddha to press himself under the Wuzhi Mountain.

Eventually, Luo Sheng's mother recommended him to a professional legal practitioner who was also her most proud student.

Luo Sheng was overjoyed, his mother's professional ability was there, and she would definitely not pit her son, but Luo Sheng's mother asked for an annual salary of 3 million plus 1% of the company's equity for the person he recommended.

Luo Sheng was also surprised that the mother of the guest intermediary would offer such a high price, but after learning about the other party's resume, it was another matter.

The person recommended by his mother for him is proficient in legal affairs, and is a high-end talent in foreign-related legal affairs, in addition to being proficient in finance and auditing. Because of personal reasons, he also rejected the olive branch of the million-dollar high-salary invitation of the Goldman Sachs Group on Wall Street, you must know that Wall Street is generally very good at recruiting Asians, on the one hand, it is a business problem, on the other hand, it is a strength problem, and on the whole, Europeans and Americans are better at playing finance than Asians.

Goldman Sachs, the company that countless job seekers in the financial industry dream of entering, tens of thousands of people apply for internship positions alone every year, and the percentage of applicants is in the single digits.

Being proficient in many fields, this treatment is not too much, especially in the financial field, Luo Sheng will not be too deep in the financial field, but the wave of subprime mortgage crisis in 2007 in the United States still needs to be dealt with, and it just needs the assistance of elite talents in finance.

Luo Sheng waited for three days in anticipation, and the parties finally came to Shencheng and successfully met.

……

This morning.

Luo Sheng went to meet at the agreed place, and in a café, he already knew the name of the person concerned, Qin Weimu, who was a woman.

When Luo Sheng learned that the person recommended to him by his mother was a woman of about the same age, he thought about something for a while.

After meeting, Luo Sheng was quite surprised, Qin Weimu is a good-looking urban beauty, with parted long hair, red lips, intellectual and full of royal sister style.

At this moment, the two sides are sitting opposite each other in a private room.

Luo Sheng looked at the beautiful lawyer sitting in front of him and said with a smile: "Weimu, it should be taken from Tao Yuanming's "Reading the Classic of Mountains and Seas: Its Tenth". Jingwei reclamation, micro wood, good name! ”

Qin Weimu held his chin in his hand and looked at the man in front of him who was three years younger than him and might become his boss, and said, "I'm ready, now I can interview and assess?" ”

Hearing this, Luo Sheng shook his head and smiled: "Forget the interview and assessment, you can trust my mother, in a word, you will leave the original law firm and run to my start-up company, I have no reason not to believe it, is it possible that my mother will still cheat me?" From now on, you are the company's chief legal officer. ”

Qin Weimu pursed his lips and smiled, and after a while, he couldn't help but smile: "Actually, I didn't know before this, I didn't expect that Mr. Li would recommend me to work in her son's company, Bluestar Technology, which has been very famous in the Internet industry recently, and I have also heard of it." ”

Luo Sheng smiled silently, and after a while, Qin Weimu added with a faint confidence: "You can consult me for any questions related to legal issues, whether it is domestic, North American, or EU countries." It also includes financial audit issues, financial aspects. ”

Luo Sheng looked at the beautiful lawyer in front of her in surprise, her words all showed strong confidence in her profession, and it was obvious that she also trusted Luo Sheng's mother very much.

After a while, Luo Sheng nodded, thought about it and said: "The company has completed a new round of financing, and has reserved an option pool, and the company has also entered a new round of development from the start-up stage. ”

Qin Weimu nodded lightly and listened carefully to what he said.

Luo Sheng continued: "With the recruitment of more and more adult employees with work experience in the future, how to keep the whole team up and down to maintain centripetal force and struggle is very critical, this is my most concerned and nerve-wracking problem recently, I think equity incentive is the best way, I also decided to engage in equity incentive in the company, but the question is, how to do equity incentive? Is it appropriate to give it to employees or sell it to employees? ”

After saying these questions, Luo Sheng looked at the young lady lawyer in front of him, and asked her to consult the staff, analyze and analyze, and make decisions by herself.

"Sell!"

Qin Weimu said without hesitation.

Luo Sheng couldn't help but be stunned for a while, and then looked at her, and Qin Weimu continued: "If you want to implement equity incentives, you must not give them to employees, otherwise no matter how good your company's management is, no matter how good you are, the probability of failure of Bluestar Technology has already accounted for 50% in advance, I can say so." ”

"Go on, listen up." Luo Sheng looked at her and waited for the following.

Qin Weimu quickly organized what he wanted to say in his heart, and after a while, he said in an orderly manner:

"Equity incentives must be sold, because if you give it away for nothing, he will not cherish it, the purpose of equity incentives is to let employees like shareholders, share benefits and risks with the company, you give him equity, the company develops well, he shares the benefits, the company develops poorly, he will not share the risk with you."

"To do an equity incentive plan, it is very easy to send it, and you can send it as you want. But the difficulty is to sell the equity to the employee, from the perspective of human nature and psychology, no matter what price it sells to the employee, he will feel high. Therefore, if you want to do a good job in equity incentives, you must meet six core elements, all of which are indispensable, namely: equity pricing, setting a limit, waiting period, immediate incentives, a sense of security and deep lock-in. ”

Luo Sheng couldn't help but be interested, he decided to do equity incentives, but he didn't think so thoroughly, sure enough, he was a professional, Luo Sheng immediately said: "Please tell me in detail about these six core elements." ”

Qin Weimu took a sip of coffee, put it down and glanced at Luo Sheng, and after a while, said: "The first priority to do equity incentives is pricing, take the case I once took as an example, there was once a business owner who also wanted to implement equity incentives, and he sold 10% of the company's equity to employees at a 5% discount at the normal valuation, but no one bought it." I'm not surprised by this, because the first thing employees will wonder is that the company has a problem, and the boss wants to trap them? ”

"The boss also doubted life in the end, why didn't any employee buy it? Is there really something wrong with the company? He's also a little self-doubting. Later, when I came to my law firm, I was consulted and entrusted, and I took the case. ”

Luo Sheng interjected curiously: "How did you do it?" ”

Qin Weimu smiled and said bluntly: "I took this case, first looked at his business operations and financial situation, and the next thing I did was to help him find an investment institution to invest 10 million, accounting for 10% of the equity, with a valuation of 100 million, the purpose of which is to price the company's equity." At this time, it was 6 million, and the employees rushed to buy it. ”

"At the same time, I also made a presentation to the employees of the company, explaining clearly what the equity incentive is, what are the advantages, what are the disadvantages, and what are the benefits."

Luo Sheng said: "In this way, my company has completed the pricing, and the pre-A round of financing has just been completed. ”

Qin Weimu nodded his head and continued: "The second element is to set an upper limit. Equity incentives cannot allow employees to buy as much as they want, for example, the vice president level can buy up to 5%, the director level can buy up to 3%, the manager level can buy up to 1%, etc., according to the employee's seniority, position, performance, contribution, etc., a weight coefficient is made to stipulate the maximum amount of sales. ”

"The third element is the waiting period. The so-called waiting period is also a test period for employees, and it is absolutely not possible to give 3% or 5% of the equity of a certain employee as soon as it comes up, and must give him a waiting period and a test period. ”

"Many times you will find that the employee waits and waits, and the employee waits to run away, because he feels that the waiting period set by the boss for him is to draw a big pie for him, so the intermediate stage needs to let him taste the real sweetness, which is the fourth element."

"The fourth element is to set up an immediate incentive. What to do? Simple, use the right to dividends to incentive, when setting options for employees, you must combine the right to dividends, although the shares are still options, but at least you can get dividends, so that employees will not feel that you give a pie. ”

Qin Weimu paused for a moment when he said this, took a sip of coffee and continued:

"The fifth element is security. Many companies fail in the end when doing equity incentives, all because of the boss's verbal promise, especially if you drink some wine at the dinner table, how can employees believe your promise? Not only will they not work hard because of your verbal promises, but they will also doubt the authenticity of your performance. ”

Therefore, when an enterprise gives employees equity incentives, it must give them a sense of security, that is, legal protection. That is, to sign a complete legal document on equity incentives, it must be complete, at least to formulate an equity incentive plan and have an equity incentive agreement to sign together, many enterprises so-called equity incentive agreements are only two pages, can this give employees a sense of security? Obviously not, it's like buying a house, the developer gives you a two-page real estate contract, do you dare to buy it? ”

Luo Sheng shook his head, he definitely wouldn't buy it, and then subconsciously asked, "Then how to operate?" ”

Qin Weimu replied: "What should I do if I have to consider the promotion of the employee? What should I do if I am demoted? What should I do if I get divorced? What to do about work-related accidents? What should I do if I leave my job? A series of employee entry, exit, promotion, demotion, and other situations should be considered and written into the agreement, exhausting all possibilities, if there are only two pitiful pages, what if there is a problem in the end? Isn't the final interpretation right owned by the company? Employees are also a vulnerable group and have no sense of security. ”

Therefore, there must be complete legal documents and a good equity incentive agreement in the equity incentive plan. When I officially join the job, I can draw up a complete contract document for you to review. ”

"The last element is deep lock-in. That is, step by step, to trap employees, to pay money, time, feelings, etc., don't underestimate the money that employees pay, for example, equity incentives let employees spend hundreds of thousands, hundreds of thousands, tens of thousands to buy the equity of Bluestar Technology, after spending this money, his mentality will change. ”

In the end, Qin Weimu said concisely: "Because whoever has the money, who cares." ”

Hearing this, Luo Sheng looked at her in surprise, and nodded silently in his heart, being able to say these words shows that Qin Weimu does not have any subjective bias, because she joined Bluestar Technology to directly obtain the distribution of 1% equity, but said that she insisted that she could not give shares directly, but insisted on selling.

It can be seen that Qin Weimu's professional ethics are very worthy of affirmation, and he will not say things against his will because he is a vested interest, public is public, and private is private.

Luo Sheng suddenly felt that the talent recommended by his mother was really reliable.

……