Options outcomes worksheet

[mrmcd]

I made this google doc spreadsheet a while back, seems like it would be useful: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1L-hwCRXKDwmOPqXCwQo4DM1cERYSgBIHM6Sp_Mye1Gc/edit?usp=sharing

The inputs are your equity percentage, the exercise cost, and the opportunity cost estimates (reduced salary, unvested equity being left behind, etc)

It takes these inputs and produces a grid of what your options would be worth at various dilution and valuations at an exit event, after subtracting out the exercise costs. Then it colors the cell red or green depending on whether or not such a scenario would "beat" the opportunity costs. Obviously it won't tell you if your individual situation is going to be a good idea (because it can't predict the future) but I find it's handy for evaluating the various outcomes that could happen, and if you'd do well in most cases, versus just doing well in exceptional ones.

My questions are:

1. Is this something that would be good to include in this guide?
2. If so, idea about how to include it. Right now just a link doesn't integrate with .md or github well, and the "source" document is tied to my personal google account, then people have to make a local copy of the read-only document to edit the inputs.

[jlevy]

@mrmcd Thanks for the suggestion!

This does seem useful. Also agree the Google spreadsheet, while nicely done, doesn't work well for many people to use in a sensible way. I think there are two pieces needed

• A bit more explanation, a blog post-sized overview of the thinking
• A real live table with sane defaults, that you can edit

Not sure you have the time, but the way that comes to mind is if you (or another volunteer) could write small one-page doc (ideally in Markdown) explaining this, plus a JavaScript-enabled table visualization that does the same thing. Put it up as a GitHub project and host it in GitHub pages or similar. If you are able to get something like that working, for sure, it would make sense to link to it from the guide. Plus would also be easier for other developers folks to contribute/enhance content and visualization, like any open source project.

[jlevy]

I'd be glad to give thoughts/feedback on it, and link to it from the Guide once it's in good shape.