4 ms·
It depends on a lot of parameters. a. Motivation: is your dream to dump your day job and join a startup? If not, stop. b. Savings: can you afford to make almo
by alain94040 12y ago
It depends on a lot of parameters.
a. Motivation: is your dream to dump your day job and join a startup? If not, stop.
b. Savings: can you afford to make almost no income for a year or more, do you have student loans, unpaid credit cards (ignore mortgage debt, it's usually healthy). Is there a minimum income you absolutely need monthly?
Then there is the actual job. Will you be the first dev for the product, do you consider the job a quasi-founder position or just dev #n?
Once you figure all of this out, the right deal can be anywhere from:
Full co-founder: no salary, 20% - 50% equity (with vesting of course).
First dev: 5% - 20% equity, with a third to half of your old salary
Dev #n: 1% - 10% equity, half to 2/3 of your old salary
- dumptwist 12y agoThank you! Do you have a read you'd recommend on vesting--an overview for someone who has never worked for a startup? Is what you listed an industry standard ratio (for lack of a better term) between equity and salary?
- alain94040 12y agoHere is a decent overview: http://pando.com/2012/04/26/founders-should-give-their-stock-back-why-vesting-is-in-your-startups-best-interest/ http://pando.com/2012/04/26/founders-should-give-their-stock... There are hundreds of pages online you can find that discuss vesting, why it's good and what the tricks are. Also, for co-founders, when we say vesting we really mean buy-back, which is much better than having options.
- tptacek 12y agoThe co-founder bullet looks fine, but the employee numbers seem off. You can't scale equity by the discount you take to your previous salary. Your previous salary might define your negotiating floor, but it's not a parameter for the employer. 5% seems very high for a non-founding employee developer. 1% seems high for any but the very first few employees.