235: How to Give Employees Stock - with Jason Atkins

Scale Your SaaS

EPISODE SUMMARY

Every founder would love to build their own ‘dream team,’ but that is usually easier said than done. Fortunately, tools like the Employee Stock Option Plan (ESOP) help achieve that goal. But then, how exactly do you implement ESOP in your SaaS company?

Cake Equity Co-Founder and CRO Jason Atkins reveals the magic of ESOP with B2B SaaS Sales Coach and Host Matt Wolach in this week’s episode of SaaS-Story in the Making. He eagerly dissects the key concepts of equity in a founder-friendly manner. Watch and witness your company grow faster through a more motivated labor force!

PODCAST-AT-A-GLANCE

Podcast: SaaS-Story in the Making

Episode: Episode No. 235, “The Best Ways to Implement an Employee Stock Option Plan (ESOP) – with Jason Atkins”

Host: Matt Wolach, a B2B SaaS sales coach, Entrepreneur, and Investor

Guest: Jason Atkins, Co-Founder & CRO at Cake Equity

TOP TIPS FROM THIS EPISODE

• Be Aware of the Amount of Paperwork
• Create an Ownership Culture
• Make Room for Questions
• Educate Your Leaving Team Members
• Get Into Scalable Systems and Use Accelerators

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

• ESOP Attracts the Best Talent
• ESOP is a Good Retention Tool
• The 409A Valuation Determines Stock Price

TOP QUOTES

Jason Atkins

[3:52] “We love how, you know, innovators are changing the world for the better. You know, not all innovation is useful necessarily, but I think through that innovation process, you know, so many of, you know, the big problems are being tackled.”

[4:40] “And I was shocked at the complexity level, and I thought how a regular founder will tackle all this without a finance background. Like it’s literally nearly impossible… I just thought, ‘Wow,’ you know, like, we should be able to one click the hell out of this.”

[13:17] “Now I don’t think it’s fair to sell the dream… But I think you do want to sell the dream a bit because, you know, great people wanna be in this type of company. They wanna be lifting heavy and they wanna be benefiting. And then you can have this team of heavy lifters if you get that culture right”

Matt Wolach

[6:43] “People enjoy their team. And their team is something that’s really powerful, something that actually helps the company grow and scale. And with a lot of these teams, a lot of founders I speak with are starting to think, ‘Hey, we need to make sure we take care of our team. We want to keep them around’ So people wanna give them some stock, give them a piece of the company.”

Get even more tips by following Matt elsewhere:

• Sales Tips
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Instagram