We have a "Founders Program" for people that know they want to start a company in the next few years. I think it's better to have full transparency on both sides:
As the company: You get highly motivated, amazing talent
As the employee / future founder: You make your intention clear to leave in x months to start your own thing and can openly discuss strategy for your company with the current founders instead of hiding your side projects.
I took this idea from Mighty / Supabase.
Application process is simple, pitch me at mike@luabase.com. Tell me what you want to do to grow Luabase and what you're thinking of doing for your company.
We have a few people who are explicitly at incident.io to gain experience of how to build companies. It may be that they won't go to do this, but their time here will put them in a great position to do so, if they ever want to.
I've seen some companies who have a standing offer to angel invest in your start-up too, though I was never sure how I felt about that.
On the angel investing, I was thinking that was the next logical step too but rather than building an internal mechanism and pulling focus I wonder if you could just partner with an early stage vc to give them first look in return for special consideration and earlier mentorship or something. Tons of early vc's with dry powder and minimal differentiation to lean on!
So we are doing exactly this, which is cool! I think the primary value is in leveraging the investor network, as you say, though the angel investment is a nice bonus.
That's a super cool program, props to you for actually putting it in place! I guess the next step is to also have a small internal vc mechanism (or partnership with a vc firm) that gives the first check to people who join? I know that'd be a huge plus for me just as an option for something I could potentially rotate to in the future if I was thinking of joining a new co, it definitely sends a strong pro-entrepreneurial signal regardless of whether you're founding something or not.
We'd never write checks out of the company, but I personally angel invest and make intros to our investors and any others I've talked to. I've pitched nearly every VC someone would want to talk to.
As the company: You get highly motivated, amazing talent
As the employee / future founder: You make your intention clear to leave in x months to start your own thing and can openly discuss strategy for your company with the current founders instead of hiding your side projects.
I took this idea from Mighty / Supabase.
Application process is simple, pitch me at mike@luabase.com. Tell me what you want to do to grow Luabase and what you're thinking of doing for your company.
0 - https://luabase.notion.site/Founders-Program-16f8d963328a47d...