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Are any of the markets for employee equity seeing much action? You should be able to: 1) Get a loan from somebody who wants in on the startup to exercise the

Are any of the markets for employee equity seeing much action? You should be able to: 1) Get a loan from somebody who wants in on the startup to exercise the option. 2) Exercise option. 3) If company decides to buy back option via first right of refusal you return the loan plus a nominal increase and you pocket the difference in valuation between rounds minus the loan fee. If the company lets you sell it to the person than they get the equity in return for their early payment. Do most stock grants disallow this transaction? Or is there not much of a market for these sort of third party buyers?

mahyarm 11y ago
For #1, I tried multiple places such as ESO fund, etc. They were not interested. I also tried selling directly. You also have to get a lot of paperwork together, that you usually don't have and it can take months as the company drags it's feet in giving it to you. There wasn't paperwork preventing this at the company I was at. If anyone is thinking about a startup offer, I would suggest getting equityzen's documentation checklist upfront. It can take longer than you think, and a few months later, people who were interested in buying might not be anymore. I was trying this a little less than a year ago, so it isn't as correlated to the current issues today. Also I would try to get the stock paperwork agreement that they will have you sign for your options. Very surprisingly, for even some big superstars today it is very hard to get this from them until you start working for them. There can be hidden gotchas like after exercise stock buyback options at the current FMV. Or restrictions that even stop you from doing things like ESO fund.