Emil E-Fetti Nnani

I was negotiating a Term Sheet with a founder, and just before wrapping up, he says “I have something that may be awkward to ask…” I had no idea where the conversation was about to go, so I braced myself for what he was going to say. Before sharing his ask, some context: He’s been working on this startup for 4.5 years (this is a Seed II round) and previously worked on his last startup for 4 years without a big exit. He has a baby at home and his partner watches the baby so that he can focus on his startup. His ask was whether he could sell some secondary to be able to get a nanny a few times a week to help with the load at home and also get some time where neither he nor his partner was busy. My immediate answer was of course. This isn’t some egregious secondary to cash out millions from his early stage business. It’s to bolster his Seed stage founder salary with a quality of life improvement. What bothers me is how many other founders may have been too nervous to ask. When a founder is raising it’s often tough to be vulnerable about something like this. In fact, the opposite should be true. As VCs, we need our founders fully locked into their businesses without worrying about putting food on their table, paying rent, caring for a child or elderly parent, etc. Everyone’s situation is different and there’s no blanket answer for how to handle things aside from talking through things openly and without judgement. In fact, once a potential founder with several children realized that launching a startup was too risky given their own personal situation and Seed salary benchmarks we provided. Hopefully more convos like this between investors and founders won't be nerve-wracking for the founder or seen as taboo by the investor.