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This is almost accurate. I would add one more thing: -> Have previous success (as founder or as employee) in same space -> funded
by zomglings 3y ago
This is almost accurate. I would add one more thing:
-> Have previous success (as founder or as employee) in same space -> funded
- ldjkfkdsjnv 3y agoYeah i was more so thinking of first time founders. Second time founder is a different thing, though I dont think early employees ("founding engineers") get much respect.
- jonathankoren 3y ago“Founding ____” is not “founder”. It’s just a fancy way of saying “employee”. This is always been the case.
- ldjkfkdsjnv 3y agoNever said it was, its a scam title. Only time it holds relevance is again if the founder already had a success. Then the chances of the equity being worth something are higher
- ShamelessC 3y agoSeems sort of clearly misleading at any rate.
- jakey_bakey 3y agoDo they still call themselves founding engineer at Series C? Just seems like a cute way to convince graduates it's worth being paid 1/4 what Google/Meta could cough up.
- llbeansandrice 3y agoIs there any real benefit to taking ~$160k and 1% as a “founding” engineer? We’re not even close to series C yet but it’s starting to feel like I need to be more aggressive about compensation or a role change. If you don’t become a +$100mm company (and have the ability to cash out at that position) it seems to be a pretty rough deal honestly.
- zomglings 3y agoDepends - how much conviction do you have in the product you are building?
- llbeansandrice 3y agoI think we’re building a great product. But 1% (undiluted) from an even $100mm company feels like a long shot.
- zomglings 3y agoIf you stick around, you should regularly get topped up so that dilution doesn't completely destroy your stake. Your salary should also increase to become competitive with the market as your company continues to raise. If the founders know what they're doing and you are bringing outsize value to the company, your salary should far exceed the market salary as your company gains success.
- jonathankoren 3y agoNo. As someone said earlier, “Founding” is a scam title. It’s just sparkle. If they’re passing that out post-A, they must really think you’re a sucker, because that’s nowhere near founding.
- zomglings 3y agoThey do - they just have to have had larger successes. "Founding X" doesn't count for shit. Being part of a team that built a hugely successful product teaches you a lot - it teaches you about the counterintuitive dynamics of superlinear growth. That is a very important mindset to bring to the table if you want to create a successful VC-funded startup.
- awesomeMilou 3y agoI had to look up "superlinear growth" because I've never seen that term used under posts with VC related topics. If you're as confused as me, Paul Graham wrote a blog post about this last October (figures): http://www.paulgraham.com/superlinear.html http://www.paulgraham.com/superlinear.html tl:dr: Just make a product that's so cool it'll go viral in it's respective market.
- behnamoh 3y agoso basically exponential but fancier.
- zomglings 3y agoThe reason I don't use the world exponential, is that superlinear growth in a product is generally not exponential. It is usually at best quadratic because there is some kind of network effect at play - the number of edges in a complete graph with `n` vertices is `n(n-1)/2`. The point is that the value of your product to your users should increase with the number of users OR the marginal cost to you of maintaining the product should decrease with the number of users. "Superlinear" captures that more effectively than "exponential".
- jefftk 3y agoTrue viral growth is exponential: each of your users gets you N>1 additional users, and so the growth of your userbase is proportional to your current scale. Superlinear but subexponential growth can still be pretty impressive, though, especially if it's fast (who cares about 0.1% weekly growth?)
- throwawaymaths 3y agoNo, definitely not as employee. Maybe founder. Failing as (a funded) founder is ok too.