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Great exit for the founders, horrible exit for the employees. In 2014 Weebly was worth $455m [1]. 4 years later in 2018 it is worth $365m. Imagine how much mor

Great exit for the founders, horrible exit for the employees. In 2014 Weebly was worth $455m [1]. 4 years later in 2018 it is worth $365m. Imagine how much more an employee could have made working for 4 years at a public BigCo with RSUs you can sell every year. This is just another startup lottery failure. Employees got screwed. [1] https://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/04/22/weebly-valued-at-455-million-amid-website-building-boom/ https://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/04/22/weebly-valued-at-455...

pixelmonkey 9y ago
Weebly was founded in 2007. Their series A was in 2007 and their series B was in 2011. Isn't it likely the bulk of employee options were granted before 2014, before their big Series C? I wouldn't be surprised if their Series B valuation was south of $100M, maybe way south of it. Perhaps it took awhile for those options to go liquid, but I doubt those employees were banking on those options, anyway. They were such early employees that they just wanted to build a great company, and the rational ones knew the options were lottery tickets.
scurvy 8y ago
Saying employees got screwed without knowing deal details is a bit preposterous. Weebly pays engineers pretty well compared with bigco salary, has a cash yearly bonus, sabbatical program, etc. The only difference is stock comp. What bigco are you going to work for in SF that gives those rsu grants? Salesforce, LinkedIn, and...? I wouldn't be willing to waste my life riding up and down the peninsula for that rsu grant.
- toephu2 8y ago
  and Dropbox, and Google (they have an SF office), and FB (opening SF office). Yes that's why you would just move to SF then. If you are in the Peninsula already then go work for FB, Google, LinkedIn, et al.* *If maximizing for total comp
  - scurvy 8y ago
    My question was for people already living in SF who don't want to ride down the peninsula. The choices are limited for bigco rsu grants. Google doesn't have engineers working full time in the SF office. They highly discourage it. The SF based engineers have a stigma that they're lesser than the MTV counterparts. FB doesn't have an SF office. Dropbox wasn't liquid until this year. To say people wasted time or got screwed 4 years ago by not going to work for bigco isn't fair.

pixelmonkey 9y ago

Weebly was founded in 2007. Their series A was in 2007 and their series B was in 2011. Isn't it likely the bulk of employee options were granted before 2014, before their big Series C? I wouldn't be surprised if their Series B valuation was south of $100M, maybe way south of it. Perhaps it took awhile for those options to go liquid, but I doubt those employees were banking on those options, anyway. They were such early employees that they just wanted to build a great company, and the rational ones knew the options were lottery tickets.

scurvy 8y ago

Saying employees got screwed without knowing deal details is a bit preposterous. Weebly pays engineers pretty well compared with bigco salary, has a cash yearly bonus, sabbatical program, etc. The only difference is stock comp. What bigco are you going to work for in SF that gives those rsu grants? Salesforce, LinkedIn, and...? I wouldn't be willing to waste my life riding up and down the peninsula for that rsu grant.

toephu2 8y ago
and Dropbox, and Google (they have an SF office), and FB (opening SF office). Yes that's why you would just move to SF then. If you are in the Peninsula already then go work for FB, Google, LinkedIn, et al.* *If maximizing for total comp
- scurvy 8y ago
  My question was for people already living in SF who don't want to ride down the peninsula. The choices are limited for bigco rsu grants. Google doesn't have engineers working full time in the SF office. They highly discourage it. The SF based engineers have a stigma that they're lesser than the MTV counterparts. FB doesn't have an SF office. Dropbox wasn't liquid until this year. To say people wasted time or got screwed 4 years ago by not going to work for bigco isn't fair.