
What salary/equity do I ask for? - jmtame

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jmtame
So, let's say this is all "theoretical" for now. A startup in CA (Stanford or
Palo Alto likely) wants to fly me over to discuss salary/equity. They gave me
a demo of their product and I think it has a lot of potential.

Here's my situation: I'm a college student (sophomore), been writing websites
in html since age 9, very comfortable with many open, web-based languages, and
very skilled in graphic design and marketing. I have most Adobe/Macromedia
programs down. I would also be the first 'employee' at this startup (would
prefer a co-founder position, but I'm not sure if it's reasonable to negotiate
on that level).

I've calculated it may cost me $2,000 a month to get a studio apartment. Aside
from that, I'll have to start paying my financial aid 6 months after leaving
school. Does anyone know what ballpark number I should be negotiating under?

~~~
mattculbreth
I'd suggest asking for 90% of a first-year salary for CS majors in the area
(I'm guessing $55k or so?), plus 5% equity. Take it from there. You might get
beat up on the 5% but if you're employee #1 it sounds reasonable.

Think hard though about leaving school. Not saying it's a bad idea, just think
it through.

~~~
cwilbur
It would have to be one heck of a sweet deal to justify quitting school for,
especially if you're getting parental support. Startups base their decisions
on your demonstrable talent; everyone else looks at credentials. If the
startup fails (80% chance, on average), not having the credential will be a
liability.

I wouldn't take an employee position at a company (startup or no) in the bay
area for under $100,000, and it would have to be pretty sweet to get me to
accept that. For a startup, it would have to be people I really liked on top
of that, because I don't put in 80-hour weeks for money alone.

And if you have parental support, quitting to take a job may well mean that
that support never comes back in quite the same way, and finishing school, if
you ever do, will be on your dime. And college is a lot more fun when you're
19 and carefree than when you're 30something and wondering if it justifies the
tuition.

It's your call, though; this is one of those decisions that has the
possibility of being something you later regret no matter which way you
decide. Think long and hard.

~~~
jmtame
There's very little parental support on this ;) My parents are the "get a
degree, work for the rest of your life" type. If it were up to them, I'd live
5 minutes away from home for the rest of their lives.

School isn't very exciting, honestly. Most of the stuff they teach you early
on is useful, but after that, they just drill down into very specific
applications of certain things, in regards to programming and business. That
stuff isn't too relevant to what I'd want to do, I'm finding, and it makes the
coursework much less engaging and interesting.

~~~
cwilbur
Do _not_ make the mistake of confusing _school_ with _classes_. (Or the
_education_ with the _degree,_ another common mistake.)

You have more free time now than you probably ever will again. You have
incredible resources all around you -- libraries, books, computers,
professors, other students. The cost of living is low, and you can easily get
student loans and grants to cover it, and you have few to no other financial
commitments. As soon as you leave the school bubble, all of that changes.

 _Classes_ are just the excuse to be there, and if you play your cards right
they won't take up more than a quarter of your time.

~~~
nostrademons
"You have more free time now than you probably ever will again."

I haven't found that to be the case. I have much more time available to work
on my own projects than I did in college. Perhaps not in absolute terms, but
in terms of usable get-code-out-there blocks.

In college, I found that homework always got Parkinson's-Lawed so it took up
_all_ my available time. Either I was actively doing homework, or I was
procrastinating on homework and couldn't justify working on other productive
projects instead. Plus, available time in college tends to get broken up into
1-2 hour blocks between classes, after activities, before dinner, while
waiting for friends to go out to a party, etc.

Now that I'm working, I have significantly less actual free time, but
everything I have is _mine_. There's no work to take home, nothing hanging
over my head when I'm not at work. And it's generally in large chunks, too. It
does kinda suck not having a social life, but it does leave decent-sized
blocks available for a startup.

~~~
rotich
Try adding a wife and some kids and report back!

~~~
nostrademons
Lack of a social life takes care of that one. ;-)

~~~
rotich
I forgot you are a geek! :)

