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Ask HN: Best way to negotiate startup equity for CTO role?
I've been offered the role of CTO in a startup whose business idea I am very interested in.
There are 3 other founders, one of which came up with the idea. I do not know what their equity stakes are.
What's the best way of negotiating a good and fair equity stake, if I take the CTO role and become lead developer?
- sebg 9y agoDepends on how far along development is and whether you are coming in as a founder CTO or first-employee CTO. 1) if still very early, then 100/4 seems fair because you could be in business for a very long time with these people so it makes sense to all be equal partners. 2) if some type of money has been raised then it's a trickier proposition. Questions you want to ask: a) how much money raised if any, b) other founder's shares, c) founder CTO or employee CTO, c) how far along development is..... In case you haven't seen them, some Quora answers: https://www.quora.com/What-would-be-the-standard-equity-percentage-given-to-a-technical-CTO-co-founder https://www.quora.com/What-would-be-the-standard-equity-perc..., https://www.quora.com/What-would-a-CTO-compensation-equity-be-for-a-small-startup https://www.quora.com/What-would-a-CTO-compensation-equity-b..., google the question and see responses from a whole host of startup websites.
- dseybermon 9y agoThanks for a great response. A) No money raised, but the three existing founders are all committing personal money to it (I may be asked to do the same). B) I can find out other founders equity stakes. C) Pretty sure it's a founder CTO role, but can double check this. D) No code developed so far, except an initial demo that I wrote for them, which bagged me the offer for the position.