
Ask HN: 'Founder Dating' Equity split approach pre-fundraise? - startupdreaming
A group of four of us have been kicking startup ideas around, and we&#x27;ve found one that&#x27;s getting some traction.<p>None of us are ready to quit our day jobs, but we&#x27;re up till 2am jamming.<p>Last night we were discussing how to handle the following and decided our best bet was to ask the HN community for advice:<p>- Some of us think we&#x27;ll become founders of this new company at some point in the future<p>- Some of us think we&#x27;ll be early employees but not founders.<p>- We&#x27;re all being super transparent about our motivations, i.e., no &quot;founder vs. non-founder&quot; issues.<p>BUT -- we want to find an appropriate way to compensate all participants for the time each of us is putting in between now &amp; the time that we actually make a decision around who is &amp; isn&#x27;t a founder, and what equity splits will look like.  One of our guys called this the &quot;founder dating&quot; period.<p>To provide some further assumptions:<p>- Let&#x27;s assume that this startup concept gets funded within the next 6 months
- Let&#x27;s assume we can distribute equity now if we choose to... or we can decide to stay away from the equity conversation entirely and find some other way to compensate us.<p>How has anyone effectively handled this in the past?  (Or just as valuable -- <i>not</i> effectively handled it and can provide learnings&#x2F;advice on what not to do)
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gus_massa
When you are only four, what's the difference between an early employee and a
founder?

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startupdreaming
We've identified the following differences so far:

Those of us planning on being founders: \- Go fulltime sooner (pre-funding) \-
More equity \- Less pay \- Ultimate responsibility: Do whatever it takes to
keep the company alive (even if that means making payroll from personal
funds/credit cards) \- Longer vesting period -- maybe even up to 10 years

Those of us planning on being early employees: \- Go fulltime later (post-
funding) \- Less equity \- More pay \- Less responsibility: No expectation to
whip out your personal CC to pay for payroll \- Full flexibility; leave at any
time \- Shorter vesting period -- the standard 4 years.

