Generally most startups have one or two "star" employees, who actually created the startup. I would say that the single engineer in a one-man startup is worth a

Generally most startups have one or two "star" employees, who actually created the startup. I would say that the single engineer in a one-man startup is worth a lot more than the average engineer in a 50-engineer startup. Instagram had 13 employees and was acquired for $1BN. Ptch had 3 employees and was purchased for $6.5M. In those cases the technology and product took up most of that value. If the acquirer is actually going to use your technology, that will obviously be a large factor in determining the sale price.