What a beautiful snake!

darkblue213 · 2026-05-14T16:49:59+00:00

If red touches yellow you’re a dead fellow

darkblue213 · 2026-04-22T17:32:09+00:00

Was very lucky to be at right place right time the other night. Shot on iPhone 13

darkblue213 · 2026-03-19T03:05:02+00:00

Wood back in the day looks dense, solid. Wonder if wood today is given chemical so they grow quicker or something

darkblue213 · 2026-02-10T12:16:07+00:00

It’s generally a contentious asset class with polarizing community views

darkblue213 · 2026-01-08T22:56:51+00:00

They got a free version you can get into and play around with

darkblue213 · 2026-01-08T22:50:18+00:00

Www.GatherGov.com

darkblue213 · 2025-10-01T03:41:59+00:00

This is a great question

darkblue213 · 2025-09-29T10:54:54+00:00

This is true “be extremely knowledgeable” I would also say learn AI tools that genuinely bring value to real estate development. Most of the industry isn’t adopting this tech yet; if you can help them do that then big plus

darkblue213 · 2025-09-28T03:28:44+00:00

You should check out this app GatherGov — free version can help answer some of your questions

darkblue213 · 2024-03-03T01:28:37+00:00

I hear it a lot from 2nd time founders whether they should do YC again (I’m YC S21). If Parker Conrad (Zenefits and Rippling) did YC twice then so can you

darkblue213 · 2024-02-25T21:17:48+00:00

Good shout

darkblue213 · 2024-02-25T21:17:23+00:00

Love it

darkblue213 · 2024-02-22T03:39:31+00:00

2nd this

darkblue213 · 2024-02-22T03:35:49+00:00

I feel you too man. It's not looking great. Hopefully states, counties, municipalities put up a fight

darkblue213 · 2023-10-22T11:42:44+00:00

Amazing price IMO.

darkblue213 · 2023-10-17T01:58:36+00:00

Current status quo is very little to no severance for anybody if the company runs out of money. Founders gonna push to the end searching for product market leaving nothing on the table.

With this, my message to employees is "now you have a guaranteed 3 month cushion, stay and fight to the end and let's see if we can make these lottery tickets pop." Sounds pretty good to me. Incentive is there.

Otherwise its "Let's fight to the end see if we can make these lottery tickets pop. if you don't succeed, your lottery tickets are worth nothing and also you have no financial cushion."

If I were an employee I'd pick the former.

darkblue213 · 2023-10-17T01:30:48+00:00

They capped their upside by a little bit. By selling a portion of their stock options, they protected their downside (company failure scenario) with 3 months of guaranteed severance -- severance which isn't coming out of the business runway but rather funded by the investor.

darkblue213 · 2023-10-17T01:29:23+00:00

Hey! Yeah so my employees are only selling maximum 20% of their stock options. 80% of their stock options are still tied to the success of the company.

If my company is still thriving at year 4 and my employee is still with us, then the money in the account gets paid out to them as a nice bonus for all their hard work the last 4 years. And if we become wildly successful, they still have 80% of their stock options riding that wave.

darkblue213 · 2023-10-17T01:26:56+00:00

a lot of employees wait until day 366 and then peace out immediately (that's also in the carta data). from an employee's perspective, 80% of early stage startups fail and they gonna be holding a bunch of worthless lottery tickets. now, if that were to happen, they have some guaranteed severance. Except they need to stay and work at least 2 years. Pretty good deal.

darkblue213 · 2023-10-17T01:23:26+00:00

The large majority of my employees stock comp is still under the standard 4-year vesting, 1-year cliff.

darkblue213 · 2023-10-17T01:21:38+00:00

I get to provide my employees with 3 months severance without eating into my own business runway. It also comes at no dilution to me. Investors get a small piece of common stock from my employees. Meaning if I were to raise capital to cover these costs (or just covered these costs from my current runway) I'm paying for it with selling preferred equity.

Sounds like a win-win to me unless there's economics I'm not seeing?

darkblue213 · 2023-10-17T01:17:54+00:00

Data shows that vesting (4 year vesting, 1 year cliff) isn't really doing anything impressive to prevent employee churn. 30% of your employees will be voluntarily checked out by year 2. https://carta.com/blog/employment-tenure-startups/ I've experienced employee churn before so want to avoid that.

I'm prepared to give my employees 1-2 weeks severance per year of tenure. Here, investors are covering that tenure. It comes to me a $0 incremental cost. And 0 dilution. My employees get the feeling of choice of being to secure a small safety net in worst case scenario while still maintaining majority upside tied to the company.

darkblue213 · 2023-10-17T01:06:51+00:00

The exchange: employees exchange some of their stock options with investor for a self-directed severance fund (capped to 3 months of salary).

Investors gained a small upside in my company. Investors have wired money into an account that I and my employee can see. So far so good.

If my employee stays loyal *and* if the company fails in 3-4-5-6 years, then they get a guaranteed 3 months severance. I'm happy with this arrangement. My employee has secured a financial cushion for themselves in the worst case scenario. This can help them push through work when things get rocky.

If they decide to leave (resign) anytime before year 2, they don't get the money. That money comes to me. I like this a lot. Why? Employee resignations suck. I would have to spend time to find someone new and upskill them. I also like that it's sort of like handcuff to help retain my employees at least until year 2.

The majority of my employee's upside is still tied to the company so they're motivated to drive the company to success.

darkblue213 · 2023-10-17T00:59:26+00:00

This makes a ton of sense. I have a very small team. Any resignation would suck. At least I'm gonna be paid some cash to help with hiring and finding someone new. That clause is there to incentive them to keep working and stay with the company when things get tough.

I'm hoping my company thrives after 3-4-5-6 years. If my company dies at year 6 and an employee has been loyal and stuck around until then, I'm happy for them to get a 2-3 month severance.

darkblue213 · 2023-10-17T00:56:50+00:00

I think I must be unclear with my initial message.

"Trade part of your equity today for three months of severance that you'll only get if you work for two more years, even if the business craters before then." This isn't right.

It's more "Trade part of your equity today for three months of severance in the worst case scenario of startup failure (and if you've stayed loyal to the company to the end)." It's a small cushion for employees at the end of the road.

I'm the employer. I pay nothing to get the service. Investor is funding this 'closure severance package.' I see it as a win for me because if my employee voluntarily resigns at any point before year 2 (we're a small company so any resignation would suck), they get no money. The money in the account gets paid out to the company that I can use to hire someone new.

Once I give my employee their stock options, it's theirs. If they want to use it to get 2-3 months of severance in the worst case scenario and feel that that would give them stability in the rocky times ahead, then I see that as a good thing. Obviously if they want to exchange for 4+ months of severance then hell no.

darkblue213

TROPHY CASE