* Class A - voting shares, founders / controlling parties, etc. Typically small fixed share count (e.g. 100), not issued dividends directly but used to represent percent of controlling interest.
* Class B - non-voting shares, early stage employees, advisors, supporters, etc. Used to issue dividends.
* Class C - Same as class B but reserved for future issuance through more formal programs like ESOP when you're ready for that
Then you might have some preferred shares for investors, say class D and E for two investor groups and then a Class F for convertible debt (even bootstrapped companies can have owner / friends / family / seed / etc money, plus may want to not rule out raising at some point).
This is obviously a lot of classes, but by doing something like this you can separate control from economic upside, create different terms / stock agreements for different classes, keep room for future planning (things like ESOP), facilitate investor needs (they almost always want preferred shares), have more flexibility with fundraising or convertible debt, etc.
I'm not actually trying to argue that exactly six classes are necessary or optimal, but moreso that its common to want not just one single share class. Practically speaking I imagine that firm does six because they're trying to give a template that'll work for many of their companies and reduce the amount of per-customer customization. My company has less although more than one.
Ah, I'm thoroughly familiar with the idea of multiple share classes (although I must commend your excellent explanation and examples here) - I was actually particularly interested what their six choices were to cover the bases as a lowest common denominator etc. No worries at all if you can't say though, I get that.
A common structure would be something like:
* Class A - voting shares, founders / controlling parties, etc. Typically small fixed share count (e.g. 100), not issued dividends directly but used to represent percent of controlling interest.
* Class B - non-voting shares, early stage employees, advisors, supporters, etc. Used to issue dividends.
* Class C - Same as class B but reserved for future issuance through more formal programs like ESOP when you're ready for that
Then you might have some preferred shares for investors, say class D and E for two investor groups and then a Class F for convertible debt (even bootstrapped companies can have owner / friends / family / seed / etc money, plus may want to not rule out raising at some point).
This is obviously a lot of classes, but by doing something like this you can separate control from economic upside, create different terms / stock agreements for different classes, keep room for future planning (things like ESOP), facilitate investor needs (they almost always want preferred shares), have more flexibility with fundraising or convertible debt, etc.
I'm not actually trying to argue that exactly six classes are necessary or optimal, but moreso that its common to want not just one single share class. Practically speaking I imagine that firm does six because they're trying to give a template that'll work for many of their companies and reduce the amount of per-customer customization. My company has less although more than one.
Ah, I'm thoroughly familiar with the idea of multiple share classes (although I must commend your excellent explanation and examples here) - I was actually particularly interested what their six choices were to cover the bases as a lowest common denominator etc. No worries at all if you can't say though, I get that.