I am employee #1 at a startup that has just completed it's Series B, having raised over $100M. I handed in my notice last week and they asked me to consult. I have some unvested options still on the table (including Series B top-up). Should/could I require them to vest those and convert to NQSOs with 10 year expiry as a pre-requisite for me to consult with them? TC 241000
If they asked you to consult, you have leverage.
You could ask but doesn't necessarily mean they'll say yes but it wouldn't hurt
Yes.
Yeah I mean, go ahead and ask for full acceleration. But I’d expect to see something like the vesting events just continue for the period you are retained as a consultant, with acceleration in the event that you are let go for non performance based reasons.
Definitely! I had a friend in a similar situation with a startup while he went to grad school. His shares kept vesting and he got paid by the hour during the consulting phase.
Absolutely ask. And walk away if they say no.
Yuuuuup
Yes, if they need you, you should ask. It should be trivial for them to let you continue vesting while actively consulting with the company (under the terms of the stock plan - you can check the stock plan to make sure). You can also ask they accelerate vesting for the remaining shares (less likely they will do this), or continue your vesting after you stop "actively working" by letting you be "on call" - where they can ask you questions sporadically. This should not require them to have to get Board approval (a pain). You will have to purchase the shares (typically within 90 days of leaving), so not sure what the NQSOs with 10 year expiry means. If you are asking for "extended exercisability", it is a great feature, but might be hard to get your company to approve this.
Converting to NQSOs gets me the extended exercisability, as I understand it. Is there another way? Also not looking to continue vesting. Looking to get it all.
Maybe your company has a feature that provides extended post termination exercisability (very unlikely). If it does, you don't need to negotiate for that and all that provides is the ability to not have to buy your VESTED shares for a longer period of time. It does not mean you vest more. Getting all your shares vested ---- highly unlikely unless you have a very small # of shares you were granted, or you are insanely valuable. Stock is granted with vesting to keep valuable employees like you around, they don't just accelerate vesting to get a bit more of someone's time. But as everyone said, it never hurts to ask. Go in with a positive attitude "you want to help, you are a shareholder" but that continued consulting will either take up precious personal time, or stop you from moving on to your next gig, so you need to get something of value for that tradeoff. Good luck!
Yes. I'd assume that's the reason (a reason?) they asked you to consult.
If you don’t ask the answers no. Ask for anything and everything.