Post Category → Formation

More Tech Startups are LLCs

TL;DR: Years ago, it was an “obvious” decision for almost every tech startup founder that they would form their company as a “classic” C-Corp designed for venture capital investment. As entrepreneurs have become far more aware of the downsides of VC money with very high-growth expectations, and the diversity and number of tech investors comfortable with LLC investment grows, that is less the case today.

Background Reading:

If you have spent almost any time reading about the basics of startup legal issues, you know that Delaware C-corps are the default organizational structure for a “classic” tech startup (software, hardware) planning to raise angel/VC money and scale. I’m not going to repeat what you can read elsewhere, so I’ll summarize the core reasons in 2 sentences:

Delaware because DE is the “english language” of corporate law and all serious US-based corporate lawyers (and many foreign lawyers) know DE corporate law.  C-Corp largely because (i) VCs have historically favored C-Corps for nuanced tax and other reasons, and (ii) virtually all of the standardized legal infrastructure around startup finance and equity compensation assumes a C-Corp.

However, times are changing. Over the past few years, we’ve seen a noticeable increase in the number of emerging tech companies that, despite knowing all of the reasons why startups favor C-Corps, deliberately choose to organize their company, at least initially, as an LLC. To be clear, C-Corps are still the norm, by far. But the C-Corp / LLC mix has, for us at least, moved maybe from 95/5 percentage-wise to about 85/15. That’s an increase worth paying attention to.

The growth in interest around LLCs has very little, or really nothing, to do with legal issues, in the sense that nothing much has changed about LLCs or C-Corps to drive people in one direction or the other.  The main drivers, from our viewpoint, are:

  • Many tech entrepreneurs no longer view venture capital as an inevitability in their growth path, and have grown skeptical of the traditional “growth at all costs” mindset found in many startup circles; and
  • An increasing number of technology investors are growing comfortable with LLCs.

Profitability is now a serious consideration among tech entrepreneurs. 

C-Corps have 2 “layers” of tax: corporate-level tax, and then tax at the shareholder level. LLCs don’t have a corporate-level tax, and therefore have only 1 layer. Speaking in broad terms, this “disadvantage” of the C-Corp structure has not deterred tech startups for one simple reason: the corporate level tax is on profits, and many tech startups don’t intend to be truly profitably any time soon. Achieving very fast growth through reinvestment of any ‘profits’ has been the dominant growth path among tech entrepreneurs, which means no “profits,” which means being a C-Corp doesn’t really result in more tax.

However, the zeitgeist among startup ecosystems is shifting from “focus on growth, and raise VC” to “unless you’re absolutely positive you’ll raise VC, keep your options open.” Keeping your options open favors starting out as an LLC, because converting an LLC to a C-Corp is way easier than converting a C-Corp to an LLC. The reason for that is simple: the IRS welcomes you with open arms if you choose to move from 1 tax layer to 2. But going in the opposite direction costs you significantly.

As more tech entrepreneurs take seriously the possibility of building a profitable, self-sustaining business, their interest in starting their companies as LLCs is growing, because building a truly profitable business as a C-Corp is much more expensive (tax wise) than it is as an LLC. Many angel investors, and also strategic investors, are comfortable investing in LLCs, particularly under a convertible security structure that doesn’t immediately result in equity holdings.

So starting as an LLC allows you to build your company, and even raise some early capital, while letting things develop to see if you’re really building a business that needs conventional venture capital (and then convert to a C-Corp), or if you’re building one that may instead become profitable and distribute profits to investors (stay an LLC).

VCs are also growing more comfortable with LLCs.

The conventional line given for why VCs “must” invest in C-Corps is that the “pass through” treatment of LLCs can result in various negative consequences to their own investors (LPs), many of whom are tax exempt – so the C-Corp structure prevents the tax problems. However, more sophisticated VCs have realized that in most cases this problem is quite fixable. They can set up what’s often called a “blocker corp” that eliminates the possibility of pass-through income negatively impacting their tax-exempt LPs. Problem solved. It’s not that hard to do.

Truth be told, a lot of VCs still don’t want to mess with LLCs. But at this point it has more to do with inertia and a desire to minimize their own legal bills than any real legal issue. Also, most VCs are only looking for companies in a high-growth track where any net revenue will be reinvested for growth (no corporate profits, no corporate tax), so they are selecting for companies for whom an LLC structure isn’t really that appealing.

But not all VCs think that way. In fact, the types of investors putting money into tech startups has been diversifying significantly. Angel syndicates have grown in size, seed funds have multiplied and grown bigger, with larger checks. And strategic investors now invest very early. Many of these groups are far more comfortable with LLCs than “classic” VCs, because they aren’t as constrained in the types of companies they can invest in.

If you are an LLC tech startup, you need tax counsel.

If you are a tech startup that wants to be an LLC, realize that while LLCs may save you taxes, they will not save you legal fees. Equity compensation, particularly to employees, is much more complex under LLCs, and requires the oversight of true tax lawyers. It is not something to be handled solely by a “startup lawyer.” Any law firm working with LLCs should have access to tax specialists, and if they don’t, that is a red flag.

Also, as startups move from a uniform growth path to one that considers a wider variety of sources of capital (angel, non-traditional seed, strategic, private equity, debt, royalty-based, etc.), they need to accept that the standardization found in conventional Silicon Valley-style fundraising is simply not a possibility. The huge push to standardize investment documentation into templates that can be almost automated stems from the “billion or bust” mindset of classic VC-backed startups. In that world, everyone is a Delaware C-Corp. Everyone is trying to be a billion-dollar company that will eventually get acquired or go IPO. All the angels talk about the same things on twitter and are comfortable investing on the same docs. So just automate a template, plug in some numbers, and focus on growth.

But in a world where everyone isn’t a Delaware C-Corp; everyone isn’t on the same “billion or bust” growth path, and there is far more diversity among companies and investors, the conditions for heavy automation and standardization simply aren’t there, and likely never will be. It requires real financial, tax, legal, etc. advisors to handle real complexity, while right-sizing it for the stage and size of each particular business.

The truth is that outside of a few large startup ecosystems, there has always been much less uniformity among financing structures. Software engineers – frustrated with their inability to force everyone into uniform documentation that can be automated – have criticized this reality as backward and just needing to “catch up,” but to people on the ground it’s been pretty obvious they’re just hammers screaming at everyone to become a nail. More entrepreneurs are no longer comfortable being pigeon-holed into a one-size-fits-all growth path or legal structure, and long-term that’s a good thing for everyone.

Vesting Schedules – Beyond the Standard

TL;DR: The standard 4-year with a 1-year cliff vesting schedule is not the only option. Companies can use a number of alternatives to better align incentives, and even select for employees/founders with more loyalty and interest in long-term commitment.

This is not a post explaining what vesting schedules are – I make it a point to (try to) not duplicate content that others have already written about 10x on the web. See this post for a quick run-down.

Most people know that the “market standard” vesting schedule is 4-years with a 1-year cliff. That’s standard for employees, but also quite common for founders. I occasionally hear founders say that a founder team shouldn’t subject each other to a cliff, but generally I think that’s a bad idea. Some kind of cliff is a great way of ensuring that anyone there on Day 1 intends to be there for some meaningful amount of time. If they balk at a cliff, it says something; not entirely clear what it says, but it certainly says something of significance.

Advisors tend to have shorter schedules, like 1-2 years, because their grants are smaller and tenure tends to also be shorter. At least a 3-month cliff is always a good idea for advisors, in my opinion. If they balk, it, again, says something.  Making small, reasonable requests in any kind of relationship, and observing the response carefully, can be a great way to gauge a person’s personality, motivations, and perspective; even if you consider the request itself immaterial and easy to drop. 

However, for companies that feel like the standard approach doesn’t fit their context, or align incentives properly, there are a lot of smart alternatives that we’ve seen our client base adopt. Here are a few:

Milestone Vesting

Instead of vesting based on time, you set it to occur upon certain milestones. These can be any number of things: achieving a certain financing, a certain revenue level, hitting a sales quota, etc. Whenever we see milestone vesting, the milestones tend to be contextualized for the individual. And certainly it only makes sense to have milestones that the individual recipient of the stock actually plays a lead role in achieving.

The benefit of milestone vesting is it can, when it works, better align “earning” equity with actually delivering results, as opposed to simple tenure based on time. However, the challenges that arise are (i) in the drafting – getting people to agree on reasonable milestones, (ii) in deciding when they’ve been achieved – who ultimately decides? the Board? the CEO?, and (iii) when circumstances change and ambiguity arises as to whether the milestone has been met. And of course, it is just more of a hassle to have to track milestones for vesting purposes as opposed to just letting the clock tick.

My strong suggestion to clients whenever they go with milestone vesting is to stick to milestones with objective, unambiguous metrics. Stay away from anything that depends on someone’s opinion – like “doing X to the satisfaction of Y person.” You’re just asking for trouble if you go there. Something like “achieving $X in cumulative customer revenue” will result in far far fewer disputes. And remember to use milestones that the stock recipient plays a significant role in helping the Company achieve. That too will prevent arguments over unfairness or bad faith as to person Y being responsible for why person X didn’t get their vested equity.

Longer Schedules (5-6 years)

There is a lot of value in attracting employees who intend to be with your company for the long-haul, as opposed to those who hop between employers. The sense of long-term thinking and loyalty that a long-term employee can bring to key projects can be hugely important strategically. I’ve always found the “perk wars” of certain tech ecosystems to be somewhat counter-productive, as they tend (in my mind) to select for employees with more mercenary personalities, as opposed to people who want to be there for much more important reasons.

I’ve certainly applied that thinking to how I recruit for MEMN.  Honestly, if whether or not we offer free lunch or doggy sitting will influence your decision to work for us, I’d prefer you not.

Companies that deeply value long-term commitment will often consider having longer-than-standard vesting schedules; maybe 5 or 6 years. Of course, for this to work you generally need to provide an appropriately larger equity stake.  Someone might ask why not, instead of one grant with a longer schedule, simply committing to do another grant after the standard 4-years?

It’s true that you can do that, and the standard approach is to provide ‘fresh’ grants to employees, for retention purposes, once their original vesting schedules run their course. However, (i) a grant made years later will have a higher exercise/purchase price (for tax purposes), so it’s actually tax favorable to do an earlier grant with a larger schedule, and (ii) there’s something about a longer schedule that just signals a person’s long-term commitment better, particularly if coupled with back-weighted vesting (see below).

Back-Weighted Schedules

If you’re looking to use vesting schedules as a way to gauge long-term commitment, back-weighted vesting is definitely an option worth considering. The concept is quite simple. Instead of vesting in equal installments over a schedule, the back-end of the schedule provides more vesting than the front-end. So instead of 25% vesting per year, Year 1 may be only 10%, but Year 4 may be 40%. There is definitely some logic to this idea, because the value someone delivers to their employer tends to go up over time, as they’ve become integrated into the culture, moved up in rank, taken on more responsibility, etc.

A longer-than-standard schedule with back-weighted vesting is one of the strongest messages you can send as to how much significance the Company places on loyalty and long-term employment. And as I mentioned before, if someone really balks at the idea, pay attention to what that tells you, because it definitely tells you something.

For key hires, the standard doesn’t always fit. 

I hear it all the time: “just go with what’s standard.” I understand that approach, and it’s sometimes driven by an attitude that all of this legal mumbo jumbo doesn’t matter. Except for when it does.

For strategic hires, particularly in the very early days of a Company when your core team will totally make or break you, non-standard vesting schedules can be a valuable tool to align incentives, and “filter” for people who may not be as committed to the cause as you think they are. Remember: when someone says “no” to something you think is reasonable, it may not be fully clear why, but it tells you something. And that something can be very important. 

Promising Equity v. Issuing Equity

Background Reading:

An underlying theme of a number of SHL posts has been the common misunderstanding among young, first-time founders around what startup/vc lawyers in fact do. As I wrote in Legal Technical Debt, a mindset has emerged from certain startup circles suggesting that virtually anything legal that startups do at early-stage, from forming their company to raising seed financing, can be automated with software.

That confused mindset leads founders to (i) assume that all lawyers are just luddites over-charging startups for effectively filling in forms, and (ii) results in founders accruing an enormous amount of compounding ‘legal technical debt’ from badly drafted documents, mis-matched contracts, missed legal steps, etc. For companies that fail fast, the debt never comes due. And yes, there is a clear correlation, from my experience, between founders who arrogantly think lawyers are worthless and those that never build anything of significance.  Dumb people believe and do dumb things.

For those founders that do end up building a real business, however, the 10x cleanup cost of legal technical debt (relative to what it would’ve cost to do it correctly from the start) is often brutally painful. There are a lot of very interesting new tools out there being built to streamline and optimize how tech/vc lawyers work, and you should certainly look for lawyers who are using them. But if you think for a second that you’re going to build a real tech company without needing serious lawyers who can safely manage significant legal complexity, you are, without question, deluding yourself.  

A significant source of “automation confusion” arises from founders not understanding the difference between promising equity and actually issuing equity. I’ve noticed this from how many of our own (very early stage) clients will randomly e-mail us a set of contracts executed over a period of several months with a short message like: “we went ahead and *issued* some equity on our own.  just FYI.”  This blog post will save me from having to write the same e-mail 30 times in the future.

Promising Equity 

I can promise someone equity in 5 seconds, and 1 sentence.

“I promise to issue you 10,000 shares.”

See, it’s not hard. Promising equity is exactly as easy, and as automatable, as it sounds.  Anyone who automates a contract for promising equity, which usually means filling in numbers into a static template, doesn’t deserve the slightest bit of praise for innovation. It’s been do-able for decades.

Sure, people still make mistakes in promising equity all the time. They calculate the number of shares incorrectly, or they get the vesting schedule wrong (or don’t offer one at all), or they simply grabbed the wrong form to begin with.  But the point is that, perhaps with a little guidance from educational materials and a boilerplate form, promising someone equity is do-able as a DIY project.

Reality Check

The problem, of course, is that promising equity is 2% of the much more complicated process needed to actually issue equity. To correctly accomplish the issuance of equity from your company and into the hands of the intended recipient, a web of highly contextual legal analysis needs to occur. Just a short (non-exhaustive) example:

  • What kind of entity are you? That influences the type of equity you can issue.
  • Stock? Option?
    • If Stock, at what price?
    • If Option, at what price? To an employee, or a contractor?
  • Vesting schedule? 83(b)? Acceleration?
  • Was the price set correctly to avoid tax consequences?
  • Enough authorized shares?
  • Correct class of equity?
  • Is it being issued under an equity plan?
  • Was the plan adopted correctly?
  • Are there enough shares in the plan?
  • Is the recipient eligible to receive the equity under securities laws and tax rules?
  • Any state-specific rules/filings to comply with?
  • Any contractual approvals needed?
  • Any cap table adjustments needed, like anti-dilution?
  • Approved by Board?
  • Anyone else that needs to be notified about the Board action?
  • Any spouses we need to worry about for community property purposes?

I could go on, but you get the idea.

Want to try automating that? Good luck to you. Medical care will be fully automated before complex legal work is. Why? Because there’s far less variability in biology than there is between the legal structures of companies. You simply cannot automate (not in a commercially viable way, at least) in an environment where every use case has a totally different starting point, context, and history, in an infinite number of combinations. Even less so where high-stakes errors are cemented in ways (via contract execution and enforceability) that do not allow for quick and easy bug fixes. That is precisely the world in which serious VC lawyers operate.

Believe me, I empathize deeply with the disdain for lawyers held by many entrepreneurs, and share some of it myself. As someone who manages recruiting for our firm, I constantly find myself fighting a sense that the legal field is a magnet for people who think that perfecting their punctuation matters more than learning to actually advise clients on the what, why, and how of startup law.

But there are lawyers in the market who know how to get things done efficiently and correctly. I hire those lawyers. You can either (i) pay them now, (ii) pay them 10x later, or (iii) assume your company will fail before the debt comes due.