I’m curious for your reasons for choosing PBC. Having looked into it a little, it seems like:
There are plenty of historical records of normal for-profits doing things which nominally seem to be hurting profits but which get justified by the CEO because “it’s better for us long-term” effectively. Ben & Jerry’s is a well known example. So if you go the normal for-profit route it seems like you have freedom of action to do this. If the concern is the board, you can choose your board members wisely and/or set up an additional “advisory board” with various powers under a normal for-profit too.
PBCs are materially worse for investors, as I understand it, even if the difference is not large, and so you slightly hurt your ability to raise.
n=2, but I didn’t observe any investor caring about the fact that we (Fulcrum Research) were a pbc for raising at seed stage, and I think the same is true of Theorem Labs (another safety startup).
I’m curious for your reasons for choosing PBC. Having looked into it a little, it seems like:
There are plenty of historical records of normal for-profits doing things which nominally seem to be hurting profits but which get justified by the CEO because “it’s better for us long-term” effectively. Ben & Jerry’s is a well known example. So if you go the normal for-profit route it seems like you have freedom of action to do this. If the concern is the board, you can choose your board members wisely and/or set up an additional “advisory board” with various powers under a normal for-profit too.
PBCs are materially worse for investors, as I understand it, even if the difference is not large, and so you slightly hurt your ability to raise.
n=2, but I didn’t observe any investor caring about the fact that we (Fulcrum Research) were a pbc for raising at seed stage, and I think the same is true of Theorem Labs (another safety startup).