> I figure I need to work out what the company could be worth and then consider what a percentage of options would provide. Correct. The first part, you are o

> I figure I need to work out what the company could be worth and then consider what a percentage of options would provide. Correct. The first part, you are on your own. That's basic research using crunchbase, owler, forester, gartner and so on. Obviously, look at recent exits in the space. The second part, try startupequity.org. You'll need to know the company stage and valuation, which you should already know. I don't know how good their data is. BI published A16Z statistics on executive offers a couple of years back, it's easily found. The numbers are still good within error bounds. An equity offer is more complex than a salary offer, because there's a wider range that varies more on the various input factors. That is, it has high sensitivity whereas salary component has lower sensitivity (to input factors). Once you have an idea of the median equity offer for the position and for what you bring to the table, then you can judge if that would even be enough for you. You can do all this before even hearing an offer from them. I can't stress this enough, you absolutely have to do this first, so that their offer doesn't ground you on their number. That's called anchoring and it works, like advertising -- even when you know what is going on it still works. So you absolutely must know your number ahead of time. For the same candidate in the same position, equity offers vary based on the company's valuation most of all. When they say "series A" median offer for "position x" is y%, what they really mean is for a company at the median valuation for a series A company. Then, knowing what a median equity offer looks like, you need to model the exit valuation. I would work from the T2D3 unicorn model as a conservative baseline. (If the startup isn't a unicorn what's the point, given your objective?) That's just a baseline. You'll have to look at other exits in their space to see if a larger exit is typical. So, for example, a VP at a series A startup worth about $50m might get 1.25% (just say) or $625k at current valuation. For a unicorn exit, that's $12.5m before taxes. Then factor in dilution and QSBS. I have a spreadsheet that models those factors. If you put contact info in your profile and reply to this thread I can send it to you. You should be able to do a first pass at it though and potentially rule them out immediately.