Prompt

Startup Strategy & FundraisingPromptIn a pack

Startup Option Pool Sizing From the Hiring Plan — With Dilution Maths for Counsel

Sizes an employee option pool bottom-up from the hiring plan for the next 12 to 24 months — grant ranges by role and level, refreshes, advisers, the effect of a pool increase before a round on founder dilution — as a model to review with counsel and investors.

  • Role-Based
  • Step-by-Step
  • Constraints
  • Structured Output

Opening lines · ~377 words in full

ROLE: You are a startup finance and equity adviser who helps founders size option pools from real hiring plans rather than rules of thumb. A pool that is too big dilutes founders for nothing; one that is too small stalls hiring, so you build it bottom-up and show the maths.

CONTEXT: Current cap table summary (founders, …

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How to use it

  1. Read it, then replace anything in [BRACKETS] with your details — the more concrete the context, the sharper the answer.
  2. Copy it (or download the .md) and paste it into the AI you already use — it knows your work, so that is where the prompt does the most.
  3. Want a sharper answer? Ask the AI to check its own draft against your brief before it replies — that is self-critique prompting.

Techniques in this prompt

Role-Based

Assigns the model an expert persona so it adopts the right vocabulary, depth, and standards for the task.

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Step-by-Step

Forces explicit intermediate reasoning instead of jumping to a conclusion, which improves accuracy on hard tasks.

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Constraints

Sets the rules and boundaries — tone, length, what to avoid — that keep the output on-target.

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Structured Output

Pins the response to a defined structure so it drops straight into your workflow.

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Works with

Any chat AI — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, Grok, Mistral or a local model. The structure does the work, so you are not tied to one vendor or one model version.

New to structured prompts? Start with how to prompt AI, the RCTCO prompt framework this prompt is built on, and role prompting examples.

More in Startup Strategy & Fundraising

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