Propellernet

What made you decide to share ownership with the team?

As much as we can reward people with bonuses, salaries, and perks and do wonderful things for them, it's right to share the overall success of the company with the key people that helped us get there. We started doing that from an early stage.

Like any business, we are just the sum of our people. It would be short-sighted to think it’s the founders that are responsible for making a success of a company.

It’s more complicated to give shares but it’s driven from a gut feeling, a belief that this is our company and what you put in you get back directly by having ownership.

What share ownership means is an ongoing and evolving conversation for us. We work quite hard in doing that. Propellernet is transparent about its management accounts so the whole team understands how the business is performing. Because we are rewarding them as shareholders alongside the founders, people see that we all share our success in the same way.

How does that fit in with Propellernet’s culture?

Share options are just one part of the picture. If we didn't live our values, focus on our culture, involve people in important decisions and invest in the wellbeing of our staff, I don’t think it would be as effective. A share scheme is one important part of the mix.

What problems were you experiencing setting up your share scheme?

There are certain jobs you give your accountant and there are certain jobs you give your lawyer, and granting options is typically a job you actually end up giving to both of them. You know there’s complexity and you don’t want to make mistakes. As much as you feel like it’s a simple process and the final outcome just looks like the same document with different people’s names on it, you still have to go through this time-consuming and costly process every time you want to add more people. That is all a significant shift with Vestd.

Vestd have really made the complex simple.

Issuing shares or options is not a DIY job for a business owner, you have too much going on in the background. You hand it over because of the fear of missing something like a filing date, or not having a document signed in the right way. It’d be a bit a risk to do it yourself. You either need a lawyer or Vestd. Or in our case, both.

The biggest barriers are cost, time and sheer hassle. I hadn't looked for an option like Vestd because I didn't think another option existed.

Any advice for other business owners considering sharing ownership?

It depends on the size of the operation. If you are a startup, then dont lose focus on the job at hand, which would be growing the business. Just set up with Vestd and get the options and shares out there. It's that simple.

If you are an existing business with a turnover of over a few million, I would suggest doing something similar to what we’ve done. We had a long legacy of agreements that formalised the business and you may well have the same and you'd want to make sure you include your legal council and work with them when scoping out your share scheme.