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I can vouch for this from personal experience. If you aren't getting a percentage comparable to one of the founders, then you shouldn't settle for anything less

I can vouch for this from personal experience. If you aren't getting a percentage comparable to one of the founders, then you shouldn't settle for anything less than near-market salaries. Startups bring on employees for their expertise. You should be compensated appropriately for it...especially if you're facing as much uncertainty and risk as the founders without the potential for a big payout. Also, when negotiating and judging a compensation package, remember that few startups have successful exits. Most of the time - statistically speaking - those options will end up being worthless. Salary (i.e. cash) has little risk associated with it.

Ixiaus 17y ago
This is good advice and a good indicator of why starting your own startup is the only sure fire way of making off like a founder. I was offered to join the team for an early stage startup a few months ago and they offered 1% with salary upon funding. According to this article, all that risk and working for nothing for a few months until they got funding would have been a waste - I now have a few contract gigs that are paying me above market value (adjusted for sole proprietorship expenses like health &c...) for my work. I basically work for a few months, then take a few off and do what I want - much more ideal than 9-to-5 and/or a high risk venture in which I'm not a founder...
- davidw 17y ago
  > This is good advice and a good indicator of why starting your own startup is the only sure fire way of making off like a founder. 'Sure fire' and 'startups' do not go together. As a counter example, there are plenty of early Microsoft and Google people who were probably much better off with their options at those companies than doing their own thing. Sure, they're outliers, but lots of things about startups in general are kind of outliers...

Ixiaus 17y ago

This is good advice and a good indicator of why starting your own startup is the only sure fire way of making off like a founder. I was offered to join the team for an early stage startup a few months ago and they offered 1% with salary upon funding. According to this article, all that risk and working for nothing for a few months until they got funding would have been a waste - I now have a few contract gigs that are paying me above market value (adjusted for sole proprietorship expenses like health &c...) for my work. I basically work for a few months, then take a few off and do what I want - much more ideal than 9-to-5 and/or a high risk venture in which I'm not a founder...

davidw 17y ago
> This is good advice and a good indicator of why starting your own startup is the only sure fire way of making off like a founder. 'Sure fire' and 'startups' do not go together. As a counter example, there are plenty of early Microsoft and Google people who were probably much better off with their options at those companies than doing their own thing. Sure, they're outliers, but lots of things about startups in general are kind of outliers...