

Ask HN: Equity Expectations for Founder Funded Startup? - PaidInBTC

I&#x27;ve been approached with an opportunity to work at a new startup. I&#x27;ve known the founders for several years, working with them at one point or another. They understand both the business and technology side and have had several successful exits.<p>This is all great, but because of this, they&#x27;re self funding and not offering a lot of equity, but a pretty competitive salary (10% drop from my current mark which is on the high end in my location). My risk is essentially nil, and my upside will be nice if we&#x27;re successful, but I&#x27;d like to have more skin in the game than the 2%, grant not option, they&#x27;re offering at the start.<p>We&#x27;ve started doing some work and I&#x27;m making most of the technical decisions, developing our architecture plan, etc. This is my first time at the ground floor, like we don&#x27;t have an office yet ground floor.<p>On the plus side the founders can fund us for a while, and if things go well we&#x27;d probably be able to skip several rounds of funding, leading to less dilution. But the downside is that since I&#x27;m not putting a few hundred grand into the pot I&#x27;m not a founder but merely a first employee.<p>With the realization that I&#x27;m taking the job, and enjoying the ride either way. Do you, HN, think that I have a shot at moving that percentage up, either through some incentives if I continue down the road of &quot;CTO&quot; for the company, or some other way? Or is this just part of the deal when working for something funded when the founders don&#x27;t need to distribute risk?
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andymoe
Now is the time to negotiate not later. If they really want you they will give
you what you ask for. Remember you have the advantage here... they need you
not the other way around.

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PaidInBTC
As fare as the advantage goes it this case I'm not so sure :) but I agree. I
learned long ago that raises and major changes in jobs aren't a reality for
most tech work these days.

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andymoe
Your advantage is that you can walk away if they don't give you what you want
and you have to be willing to do it. It's like buying a car. You could also
get them to come up 10% in salary if they won't budge on equity. The important
thing is to get them to actually compromise in order get you on board. At
early stages there are going to be tons of compromises and you need to know
they can handle making them to get a good outcome for everyone involved.

