Hi, I cleared the interview process of a startup. It has been founded by some rock stars of silicon valley (still in stealth mode, so cant reveal much). the team size is 4 as of now: ceo, cto(still codes, over 12 yoe) designer and 1 engineer with 10years of experience. how much equity should I expect? (atleast a rough range maybe?) I’m still young: 25y. 2.5yoe at Google and a startup. Would really appreciate your inputs. Thank you.
1-2%. You are with rockstars that will significantly increase your chances of success. More importantly you’ll learn and be close to such people = better than money b/c you’ll learn to create it with the connections of talents they’ll draw in. Don’t think of the %’s too much, if they are truly rockstars it’ll be worth millions (not counting the fact of what you’ll learn). Vs being a co-founder with 30% of any other random 99.9% of startups that end up mostly worthless.
You could possibly bargain for 3-4% but you really really need to bring something that they can’t find. Otherwise they’ll go look for another 2.5 YOE
Also do you expect a salary? Salary with that amount of equity for your YOE with who you are working with is really great. Again, I’m assuming these are rockstars who know what they are doing.
Thank you. Yea, I’m expecting a salary as well. Since I’m on h1b. I’ll hear numbers from them soon and then update this post. The space is super competitive (with big companies in the space) and I’m kind of worried if it’ll actually be worth something.. because i have been a part of a similar startup in the past. The experience is definitely rewarding but ended up winding down for nothing. And yea.. I’m probably attracted to this startup just because of the roller coaster ride in startups and the people. I’m sort of doubtful as of now if we’ll actually do well.
I recommend asking very tough and thorough questions. At the minimum, their roadmap should be good enough to be acquired if they are in a hyper-competitive space due to the fact the dominant companies will want the edge. However, they should be clear on how they think that could possibly happen as the base scenario and they can defend it as a really good Plan B/C. Now beyond the base scenario, they should be able to be confident on what the Plan A is. I would evaluate timing (i.e. what is the window to really capitalize on this market), competency of the team to executed (sounds like they raised some money so I assume capital is non-issue). Careful of really overconfident, rosy outlooks = inexperienced founders who haven’t been through tough times.
Thank you. :)
And yea.. i think they are rockstars. The ceo is pretty famous and he’s kind of purposely keeping all this startup news a very low profile.
Is this Navals new company?
Curious to hear more. Dm me?
Better off being one of the cofounders
No it’s not. He’s 25 yr old. If he thinks so he should go out on his own and not take this offer. If these co-founders are truly rockstars, he needs to grind it out for 4 years, learn a shit ton, hopefully get rich, and then start his company in the least riskiest way because he’s been through it all.