
Ask HN: Can you negotiate the opposite way after an offer? - PureOrdinary
I started a SaaS startup last year. Launched; found good product market fit; have a $208k run rate for the year. Adding customers pretty steadily.<p>I was reached out to by a former colleague who heard what I was doing. Had a few meetings and saw this guy as being a great first step towards getting me off biz dev and letting me focus on tech.<p>While the company is doing well, it still needs a lot of work. I mulled it over and saw him basically coming on as a co-founder. Many people I asked said he should get 5-15% which I felt was insulting given where I am in the process.<p>I came to him with a verbal &quot;pre-negotiated&quot; offer meaning I&#x27;ve already accounted for back and forth between both parties because I hate wasting time. The offer was a solid 40% which I felt was an incredible offer.<p>He then spent a month in back forth trying to get to 50%. In his defense, he threw out some very aggressive and generous conditions to get to 50% but I kept saying 40% is where I&#x27;m drawing the line. We&#x27;re still in limbo.<p>I&#x27;ve started evaluating other ways to push the needle and part of that is just raising 500k via notes from some friends, family, and execs of my last two companies. Informally, it seems like I could close this in less than a month and get an engineer and the first &quot;sales person.&quot;<p>However, if I do the note and the first person, I wouldn&#x27;t have 40% to give him. It would be closer to like 30%, which is still a a great IMO.<p>Can I reneg from 40 to 30? To be clear, I want to work with this guy and he brings a ton of value. But in the time that he&#x27;s tried to get to 50% I think I&#x27;ve found a better use of that 10% maybe 15% on the cap table?
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gt2
I think you should hire him with a small salary, make his stake less than 50%,
vesting over 4 years.

