Entrepreneurship Pop Quiz: There Will Be Blood (S6E5)

WHAT YOU’LL SEE THIS EPISODE:

You’ll get to see what a pop quiz challenge looks like in this episode, and fair warning: it’s not exactly pretty. Different from the other dailies, during a pop quiz challenge, the contestants are not allowed to watch each other before their turns to ensure fairness. They do, however, all get to sit in on the valuable consultations, which you’ll also get to see. This episode also features that night’s Blox-Off which is geared up to be the most heated battle yet. With just two days left to go, everyone is doing everything they can to be crowned the Best Startup on the Blox – will it be enough?

THE BATTLE OF THE BLOXERS

It’s time to start the “bloodbath”… aka the pop quiz round of consultations that will test how much the contestants learned in the day’s lesson. Many Bloxers fare well with the factual questions, citing word for word the material they were presented with. After they’re thoroughly quizzed, the consultations begin, with a wealth of knowledge being delivered by the judges.

After a brutal day, next up is the night’s Blox-Off, where things will only get harder for the contestants, as the night’s challenge means the winning Bloxers get grilled in an investor-based role-playing challenge. After the most intense battle yet, the rankings are announced as the leaderboard once again shakes up and the contestants are reassured that they are doing “everything right.”

Some of the night owl Bloxers stay up for rounds of pool and entrepreneurial conversation as others head for a good night’s sleep before Day Four begins and the battle continues.

EQUITY SPLITTING STRUCTURES FOR CO-FOUNDERS, INVESTORS, & ACQUIRERS

In the early stages of startups, founders need to find ways to source the funds needed to do all the processes that will get them traction. There are many equity options, but you never want to give away the whole “pie” – because once it’s eaten, it’s gone. In order to avoid this and potential dead equity, founders should build a vesting schedule, a pre-negotiated stock percentage ownership by a co-founder or vendor that is not earned upfront, but a little bit at a time, over a negotiated amount of time. Basically, valuing a startup is more like valuing art than it is valuing a business. You are what the market says you are.

KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE:

  1. To cross that gap between where you’re at right now and where you need to be before you become ubiquitously financeable, we often have to use our equity as poker chips to pay for the people and things we need.
  2. An equity split is when you give a co-founder or vendor equity without any tool for clawing it back. Meaning the percentage stays the same, regardless of circumstance. The percentage won’t go down if they leave; stop providing value; or are even fired.
  3. Dead equity is equity owned by a co-founder or partner who didn’t provide the value you thought they agreed to, and now they’re gone. Either because they quit, or were fired, and you have little-to-zero legal ramifications for getting it back.
  4. A cliff is another variable that changes the structure of the deal. It protects the founder from having to give any equity at all until a certain minimum amount of work/value time has been showcased.
  5. Entrepreneurs need to do a better job understanding that they’re the biggest investor in their business by far, and that your business is an investment asset. One needs to be able to track how inputs translate into value.

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Meet The Judges

Andy Chan
Andy Chan
Right Rudder Aviation

Andrew Chan is the Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder of Right Rudder Aviation. He holds several Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certificates including Certified Flight Instructor Instrument-Airplane, CFI-Glider, and Airframe & Powerplant Mechanic. His instructional specialties include bush flying, aerobatics, and advanced transitions. Andrew is also the Manager of the Inverness Airport (KINF), and proudly serves on the Board of Directors of the Society of Aviation and Flight Educators (SAFE). Since 2016, Right Rudder Aviation has set out to make the dream of flight accessible to all. Starting with a single 1946 Piper Cub in the flight school, today RRA is a full service Aerospace firm. Conveniently located in Central Florida, RRA is a Fixed Base Operator (FBO), flight school, aircraft maintenance facility, and aircraft dealership. RRA represents and sells all Pipistrel products across the United States, and is the exclusive dealer for the highly praised and newly launched Pipistrel Panthera. Right Rudder Aviation focuses on improving all aspects of aviation for the next generation- from launching revolutionary training programs to electrifying aviation into the future.

Brittany Hays
Brittany Hays
South Sound Staffing

As the owner and founder of South Sound Staffing, Brittany is driven by a genuine desire to make a profound difference in the staffing industry. Being a family-owned agency, Brittany and her team go above and beyond to deliver exceptional service and unmatched dedication to their clients. With a customer-centric focus, they strive to provide the best staff, ensuring that employers find the perfect match for their organizations. Brittany’s extensive experience of over 10 years in the industry has honed her expertise, making her a true authority in the field. As a thought leader, Brittany is passionate about bridging the gap between employers and employees. She actively engages in discussions surrounding hiring, careers, staffing, leadership, and recruiting. By sharing her insights and expertise, she empowers both job seekers and employers to navigate the ever-evolving job market with confidence.

Chef GW Chew
Chef GW Chew
Founder & CEO of Better Chew

​​GW Chew, aka Chef Chew, is the Founder & CEO of Something Better Foods Inc. and has been a vegan food inventor/restaurateur for over 15 years. Adopted at birth into a family with the last name “Chew,” Chef Chew believes that he was born with a mission and purpose to change lives for the better, one chew at a time. Chef Chew grew up in the “country” amongst a family of very heavy meat eaters and noticed over time that a lot of different diseases, from diabetes to cancer, plagued the members of his family. He later discovered that many of those same diseases have been linked to poor diet and overconsumption of animal meat products. Inspired to begin living a healthy lifestyle, Chef Chew switched to a plant-based diet in 2001 and started experimenting with creating vegan food products in 2004. He painstakingly invented the Better Chew proteins in his mom’s kitchen and has perfected the textures and taste over the past 15 years.

Jarret Winkelman
Jarret Winkelman
JS Winkleman Consulting

Jarret Winkelman is an American business executive and serial entrepreneur. He specializes in establishing and growing companies from zero to multimillion-dollar revenue-generating businesses. Jarret was previously the founder and CEO of Incident Response Technologies (IRT), a GovTech company focused on providing solutions to first responders. Jarret bootstrapped IRT to the upper six figures in annual revenue, then raised $2.5M in venture capital to accelerate growth. IRT ultimately generated millions in revenue and served hundreds of customers throughout the United States and internationally. In 2021, IRT was acquired by The Riverside Company, a global private equity firm, and merged with their portfolio company Omnigo Software. In addition to remaining active as a thought leader and executive in the GovTech market, Jarret owns and operates a variety of business ventures including real estate investment firm Alpha Echo Properties, JSWinkelman Consulting, and Caddis Outdoors.

John Rake
John Rake
CTO BetaBlox, CEO BuildingBlox

John’s passion lies in helping entrepreneurs and startup founders launch amazing software into the market that customers love. He partners with early-stage companies, to help them validate their ideas, to build software that matters and that customers actually want to buy. John has helped many bold entrepreneurs solve big problems that create a lasting impact.

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