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If you ask the average entrepreneur what the ingredients are for generating a great payout, the answer will probably include some combination of the key words market, pain point, competition or some of the other usual topics relating to picking a good strategy. Taking a step back, I want to put some structure around the answer to this question. Some of the key drivers of an entrepreneur’s returns should receive more attention. I propose that there are three main ingredients in this recipe: the concept, the operation and the financing structure. Note that there are many other ingredients in the success of a startup, not the least of which is luck, but I think these three are necessary components for determining the payout of the founders.

The concept includes the business model and the corresponding target market and competitive landscape. In sum, the concept speaks broadly to the strategy of the startup. This is the side of the business that typically receives the most focus from entrepreneurs in a company's earliest days.

The operation includes the team and processes related to delivering the product or service and administrating the company. This is the “how”  – how this business is going to be built. The operation speaks to the tactical side of starting a company. This category often receives the second most consideration initially, but consumes nearly all of an entrepreneur's attention once the business has been started.

The financing structure includes the type (angel, venture, debt, etc.) and timing of capital used to build the company. For many this topic is an afterthought. Once the founders have decided what they’re doing and how they’re doing it, they scrounge around for whatever capital happens to be available at the time. While this is in part due to the relative scarcity of capital in the venture ecosystem, the financing strategy deserves far more consideration than it often receives, as this ingredient can be one of the single largest determinants of an entrepreneur’s payout.

While entrepreneurs may not bother to spell out all three of these elements in a casual conversation or a pitch to an investor, entrepreneurs should be thinking about each of these elements because the wrong approach for any of them could leave the entrepreneur little in return for his effort.