3 ms·
In Silicon Valley, my startup offers over the past two years have ranged from $160-250K with 0.5-0.75% equity. Here is the best writeup on startups I've ever r
by LogicFailsMe 12y ago
In Silicon Valley, my startup offers over the past two years have ranged from $160-250K with 0.5-0.75% equity.
Here is the best writeup on startups I've ever read:
http://www.geocities.ws/drhenke/startupmemo.htm http://www.geocities.ws/drhenke/startupmemo.htm
I expect to hear how tone deaf and pessimistic the above advice is, and said pessimism will lead to this post being downvoted, but I have found it most helpful. It meshes with my own philosophy that the only startups I'd choose over a well paying BigCo position are ones that offer a founder's position with 5+% equity. Risk should be proportional to reward.
To put this into perspective, a friend of mine was the 20th or so employee at a startup that was eventually purchased after dying and coming back to life over a decade or so. In exchange for a decade of his life and going without compensation for nearly a year, he got ~$400K. A nitwit co-worker who had 50x his equity in the original incarnation that died and who had nothing to do with its resurrection and its eventual purchase got ~$20M on the basis of having a 3-letter title in that original startup. Don't end up like my friend.
- czbond 12y agoThe advice here and in your link are very well thought out. I have too founded 2 companies, 1 died - 1 under $10M. I have a penchant for the work in startups - but without a significant stake, it's hard to quantify putting in the hours at a significantly reduced rate.
- myth_buster 12y agoThank you for the link to the memo. I'm looking at joining a startup after a decade in enterprise and am doing my research. Where would one find the details to the questions in the financing section (burn rate, money in bank, valuation in next financing)? I was able to pick info on funding rounds from crunchbase, # of employees from Co. site but that's the most I've got. Any pointers will be helpful.
- troels 12y agoYou can always ask. If you want to do the math your self, for most companies the cost is predominantly determined by salaries. If you can figure out the number and positions of employees, you should be able to estimate it fairly accurate. Figuring out how much they make on the top line is slightly harder, but you can usually estimate it if you can find out how many users they have (which is often not very secret) and if you can guess at how much they make per user (usually roughly the same figure across an industry - so again, not overly secret) If you make your calculations up front, you will know which variables you are least confident about and can try to pry about them at an interview.