

Ask HN: Company offering a Talent acquisition - terms?  - mthorpe

A large company has approached our startup to discuss an "acquisition". During the meeting they were offering a talent acquisition where we join them in their management team. 
We,ve been bootstrapping since launch (10 months ago)<p>A few questions:
What terms should we ask/negotiate about?<p>Some things that pop to mind are salary, our new roles in the larger company, stock options or cash? Other things ive read are "retention bonuses etc"<p>What do we need to be weary going into further discussion ?<p>The ball is with us now to get back to them on whether we are willing to give-up our own startup and join them.
Our team have decided we are - how should we approach it?
We also have a small shareholder who isn't full time and would want to work at this larger company - does that mean he will not gain anything from this acquisition if it is purely a talent* acquisition?
 Thanks!
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dstein
Talent acquisition sounds like a polite way of saying you no longer believe in
your startup's business plan. That's a bigger question than any terms they
offer. From what I understand 3 million per founder is the going rate, so just
do the math of whether you think your startup will be worth more than that in
a few years.

~~~
eps
Where did you get the gong rate from if you don't mind me asking? Seems pretty
high, even for the Valley.

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cyrus_
A talent acquisition means the company buys your company and then hires you --
all the shareholders make money, even those which the new company doesn't
hire.

This is very different from dissolving your company and getting big sign on
bonuses. If that is how you are being approached, your small shareholder is
going to be mad.

