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Business Valuation

Do we need to do a 409A valuation before offering equity to our first employee ?

We are going to hire our first sales rep(and that will be our first employee). We are going to offer the sales rep some equity.

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Humberto Valle

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Not necessarily. As long as you have the stocks to be issued.
Have a prior contract agreement between owners of what equity is available, the vesting period.
(Some do it on % base points per year, i.e. 50% in year 1 and 50% in year 2, or 1k hours worked) if they walk away in first year they take what has been accumulated.
Or is the vesting automatic? - not recommended.

LLC, only allow for equal member ownership rights, but and you all save money having bonuses rather than salaries, equity is a good way to offset that as well.

So I'm short- there are other factors to consider more than actual valuation which at the end is just a guess since you have no outside investors and large sales (I'm assuming)
Offer a %, of the business if is LLC. You could have a limited partnership LLC as well. Or if is a C or S Corp you can definitely offer shares at book value which at this point would probably be in the .00001 or less range per share.

Answered over 9 years ago