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Reporting ESPP taxes

March 19th, 2013 | 2 Comments

Tweet I know taxes are due any day now and you are wondering what the heck to do with your ESPP tax reporting. Maybe you’ve been participating in your companies ESPP for years or got started recently. Either way, an understanding of how to deal with ESPP tax reporting is important and it also highlights how great of an opportunity you have because an ESPP is available for you to participate in. If you haven’t started investing in your company ESPP – you should go read You have an ESPP now what, then learn to configure your account for selling ESPP shares, then read up on what to do with all those dividends and option premiums in your ESPP account, and finally read this article on how to report the profits … Read entire article »

Filed under: ESPP

5 Investing Lessons from Jeff Clavier

February 11th, 2013 | Add a Comment

Tweet I came across this infographic and thought it good to share in the series of Investing Lessons From Venture Capitalists series. It is interesting because it initially highlights what a tech VC looks at when evaluating an investment so of course if you are starting a new tech company and are planning to raise money for that new tech company you need to understand all aspects of the infographic. For the rest of us who aren’t creating new tech companies and just happen to work at them or are friends and family of them… this is interesting as well for a number of reasons. If you are giving any feedback to a tech startup and don’t have expertise or a strong opinion in one of the areas here – don’t fake … Read entire article »

Filed under: Entrepreneurship, ESPP, Investing, Startups, stocks, Technology

5 Investing Lessons from Chris Devore

July 9th, 2012 | Add a Comment

Tweet Chris Devore graces us with his wisdom in the fourth post in our ongoing Investing Lessons From Venture Capitalist series. Chris is a local Seattle investor (our first local investor) and is heavily involved in a lot of areas building the Seattle startup scene. His investing lessons are shared from the perspective of his move from being an entrepreneur to turning into an investor and prove to offer some interesting insights into early and not so early stage investors. Lesson #1 – Understand Who Else Is Investing It may not be obvious why it is important to understand who the other investors are, but it is very important. The reasons are different for an early stage company than they are for a publicly traded company; however, the need is equally important. Looking at … Read entire article »

Filed under: Entrepreneurship, ESPP, Investing, Startups, stocks, Technology

15 Investing Lessons From Venture Capitalists

July 2nd, 2012 | Add a Comment

Tweet The series Investing Lessons from Venture Capitalists has gotten off to a great start. I have looked at a few great investors and found some great insights. Chris Sacca, Fred Wilson, & Howard Lindzon have all provided some brilliant insights by publicly talking about their investment thesis and strategies. Let’s briefly recap them here with a short tweet-able description… 5 Investing Lessons from Chris Sacca Lesson #1 – The Team Matters “Invest in teams you would spend a secluded weekend with.” – http://wp.me/pS3iU-kP (CC: @Sacca) Lesson #2 – Support Systems Are Important “Pay attention to who is supporting, advising, & guiding the business” – http://wp.me/pS3iU-kP (CC: @Sacca) Lesson #3 – What Product “No product – no business, poor product – poor business” – http://wp.me/pS3iU-kP (CC: @Sacca) Lesson #4 – Customers Make The Difference “Will someone actually pay real money … Read entire article »

Filed under: Accounting, Banking, Entrepreneurship, ESPP, Investing, Profit, RealEstate, Startups, stocks, Technology

5 Investing Lessons From Howard Lindzon

April 2nd, 2012 | 1 Comment

Tweet Howard spews investing advice every Monday (usually), he talks about the individual companies he invests in all the time on StockTwits and isn’t shy to discuss his reasoning behind each of those picks. As you may have picked up on, the Investing Lessons series that has looked at Fred Wilson and Chris Sacca focuses on lessons that we can take back and incorporate into our own investment strategies. While it may be great to follow Howard into some of his picks (like Pabrai, I’m a fan of cloning great ideas), I think it is more valuable to learn from his examples and discussions about how he invests. Howard recently popped up in a foundville interview and provided some insights into himself and his thought process. Thinking through the lessons we can learn from … Read entire article »

Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Investing, Profit, stocks

5 Investing Lessons From Fred Wilson

March 19th, 2012 | 3 Comments

Tweet Following up from my last post in the series 5 Investing Lessons From Chris Sacca, I came across this article that Jeff Bussgang wrote on lessons for startup entrepreneurs. Reading the article, there were a few key points that Jeff points out as important for startup entrepreneurs. These are great for the MBAs Fred was speaking to and entrepreneurs, but it is interesting the insight that Fred is providing into his thoughts on investing and how relevant they are to investors in public companies. Let’s look at each of the key points and how they are relevant to retail investment decisions. Lesson #1 – Embrace Failure Fred observed that failure is typically a valuable and powerful experience—forcing introspection, humility, and an extra drive to prove something to others. He observed that the entrepreneurs he … Read entire article »

Filed under: Entrepreneurship, ESPP, Investing, Startups, stocks

5 Investing Lessons From Chris Sacca

March 12th, 2012 | 3 Comments

Tweet There is a lot of hype around venture capitalists, the VC 10x return requirements, their high flying exits when companies like Facebook IPO, and their exclusive carried interest income that is barely taxed. It is certainly well deserved hype, there is a lot of money to be made (and lost) in venture investing, what is interesting though is that the basic principles used in venture investing are principles that any investor can and should use. Have a look at this recent report on GeekWire on the returns of venture captialists, you will see an obvious trend that VCs returns are long term and not short term. The thought here is that these returns are based on longer term fundamental or value investments and not shorter term momentum or technical investments. … Read entire article »

Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Investing, stocks

ESPP Options – Account Configuration

January 24th, 2012 | 1 Comment

Tweet Ok, I get it. The account you have at Fidelity where your ESPP shares are dumped each quarter doesn’t allow option trading. Now you read my post on how to sell covered calls against your shares and are lost as to how to make that happen in your account. I thought about this and have been pretty hesitant to walk through the steps to make this work for everyone… If I have to walk you through how to make this happen in your account, are you really ready to start trading options? Well,. being a consultant though I guess I can’t help myself. Selling covered calls isn’t exactly putting on an Iron Condor or Butterfly option strategy. It is simply saying that you already own shares of a firm and … Read entire article »

Filed under: career, Covered Calls, ESPP, Investing, Options, Profit, stocks