5 Must-Have Templates for Startup Founders
My favorite tools from five years of Elite Game Developers
I wanted to write an article detailing the top five templates I've created in the past five years of running Elite Game Developers.
Here are the top ten templates I recommend checking out and sharing with your friends and acquaintances considering a startup.
1. Reference check template
I like this template so much because it comes in handy for me pretty much every week. I'm either doing reference checks on a founder or helping in the interview process for a hire in one of my portfolio companies. I religiously go through the main questions and then pick a few from the additional questions.
Reference checks are so easy to skip if you need to hire people quickly. But it's the most valuable tool to determine if someone is worth every word they say. I've come across great people who end up not being so great after you hear from their ex-colleagues how they are to work with. My partner at F4 Fund, David Kaye, recently shared his experience with reference checks on Linkedin.
2. eBook - 20 Questions Investors Ask
When investors meet founders for a pitch meeting, they're looking to spend time asking questions. I've spent time developing the ability to ask the right questions. These questions are designed to help me understand the founder, the business, the market, and the potential for success.
I believe that investors come up with questions based on their own experiences and knowledge. That's what I do. Investors may have seen similar businesses in the past and want to know how this one is different. They are also curious about the founder's background and expertise in the industry.
Sometimes, investors ask questions designed to challenge the founder's assumptions. For example, they may ask about competitors or market trends that could impact the business. This helps the investor better understand how the founder thinks and plans for the future.
Other questions may be more technical in nature, focused on the product or the technology. Investors want to know how the product works, its key features, and how it compares to other solutions on the market. What is the value proposition, and why will the product displace the competition?
Investors may ask questions about the business's figures. Besides runway assumptions, they will want to understand how the company plans to make money when revenues will be generated, and what the projections look like.
Investors ask more questions in a pitch meeting to get a better sense of the business, the team, and the potential for success.
And there's so much more. I've created an eBook on the twenty questions that investors ask.
3. Cap table modeling template
The cap table template was the first template I created. I built it in November 2019, five years ago. I wish I had something similar when I started Next Games and had methodically followed the dilution per fundraising round.
With this template, you can predict how future financing rounds will affect your cap table. In this YouTube video, I walk through all the aspects of the modeling template.
4. Stock options allocation template
In the early days, startups used stock options to attract talent, offering them equity—essentially a "lottery ticket"—in exchange for taking the risk of joining a fledgling startup. But nowadays, most startups, even ones that wouldn't be considered fledgling, offer stock options to hires. This allows employees to have a personal stake in the company's success, creating alignment with the company's goals and boosting motivation.
Employee stock options give employees the right to buy shares at a set "strike price," determined by the company's valuation at the time of the grant. To help startups allocate stock options effectively, I created this tool in 2020, inspired by guides from Index Ventures and Buffer's Open Equity calculator. This tool provides explicit allocation models for gaming companies, and I've created a video as a guide to get started with it. Check out the beard I had in 2020!
5. eBook - It's a pass
This was a fun book to work on. It was finished and made available in early 2023. It's called "It's a pass," and in it, I discuss the countless reasons why investors will say no to investing in a startup.
In order to write this book, I went through all the pass emails I'd sent during 2020-2023 and picked a few dozen that really stood out. In the book, I attempt to explain why those reasons matter and what you can do about this as a founder.
Final words
I've shared so many more templates. Check out the Google Drive folder to see what I've got there.
Other things to share
David Kaye just posted a piece on his Substack where he interviews Siqi Chen about how startup founders can be better storytellers. Here's the piece.
Also, Appcharge, a company I invested in before F4, recently released a piece on the popularity of web stores. You can check it out here.
Thanks this is really helpful.