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1/10: One of the things I am proudest of was how @i2pi and I handled the Simple sale to BBVA. Out of the $117M sticker price, $14.6M in cash was paid out to 100 employees excluding founders.
2/10: How did that happen? First of all we fully vested and 100% accelerated every single employee's options at close. Those new CS employees who were there for 6 weeks before the sale? They got 4 years of options fully vested and paid in cash. But that totaled up to only $6.4M.
3/10:That just didn't seem like enough. For @i2pi and myself, this was going to be life changing money. We wanted our friends and colleagues to get as rich as we could make them. So we took another $8.2M off the top and distributed it in cash to those 100 employees.
4/10: The so-called "Sales Transaction Bonus". We did it because we could. It was discretionary and we paid it out to folks we knew had gone above and beyond, even if it wasn't reflected in the cap table. We bumped some early employees to over $1M. 40 people got paid over $100k.
5/10: The Board was fully onboard with this plan, even though it came out of them and their LP's pockets too. @mattcharris, @infoarbitrage , @joshk, and @ganeumann are total mensch. This was a good deal for everybody, and they were happy to spread the wealth around.
6/10: As founders, @i2pi and I had leverage. BBVA really wanted us to stick around. They reasoned that if we stuck around, the team would too. So we took a 60% reduction in our cash payout as a deferred earnout - we could make a lot more in 5 years, but only got 40% upfront.
7/10: @i2pi and I didn't set out to sell @simple. A pulled term-sheet forced us down the sale route. By Jan 2014 we had options. I remember exactly where I was when I decided to turn down our final VC term-sheet. It would have been a $25M round from the best in the business. Sigh
8/10: So BBVA needed us to stick around and the board needed us to not blow up the deal and sign up for a big clawback and earnout. We could use our leverage, and we used it to get the largest "Sales Transaction Bonus" we could negotiate for employees.
9/10: @i2pi and I spoke to each employee after the sale announcement. People came in thinking they were getting fired, and were told they were rich. They couldn't believe it. People cried. Others went out and bought houses. $400k in cash is life changing money for a 23 yr old.
10/10: One of the best things I've ever done. After @AshaKarkal and @Aleshkarkal of course.
