www.avc.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

The other important data point is the number of fully diluted shares. The second bracket is Director level managers and key people (engineering and design superstars for sure). The third bracket are employees who are in the key functions like engineering, product, marketing, etc. Let's say the number is $25mm.

Equity 64

Equity Employee CTO Hire Fractional CTO 64

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 27, 2011

Despite advances in cloud infrastructure, many businesses still have fleshy parts—soft underbellies where a human hand is required to keep quality control, stuff something into a box, order inventory, hire enough engineers to keep the site going or manage cash. Scale brings complexity. Healthcare? Yeah, maybe we should look into that.

Dilution 104

Dilution Equity Hiring Partner 104

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 17, 2013

CEO brought in to replace the founder, 5 - 10% CTO, CFO, VP of Marketing or Sales, 1.5 - 3% Chief Engineer or Architect, 1 - 1.5% Advisory Board Member, 1% Senior Engineer,3 -.7% Offers near the high end of a range will come with a lower cash salary, maybe even 50% of the going rate. 7% Product Manager,2 -.3%

Stock Options 224

Stock Options Stock Advisory Board Startup 224

keen.io

FEBRUARY 5, 2013

Engineer, arranger, communicator, amateur photographer. And if the CEO says, “Salaries will be adjusted to market value soon,” that’s probably a best-case scenario. And they gave me a choice whether I’d want more stock or a higher salary.” It’s so weird to be negotiating my salary with our friends. Michelle Wetzler.

Salary 50

Salary Equity Startup San Francisco 50

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

CEO brought in to replace the founder, 5 - 10% CTO, CFO, VP of Marketing or Sales, 1.5 - 3% Chief Engineer or Architect, 1 - 1.5% Advisory Board Member, 1% Senior Engineer,3 -.7% Offers near the high end of a range will come with a lower cash salary, maybe even 50% of the going rate. 7% Product Manager,2 -.3%

Stock Options 230

Stock Options Stock Advisory Board Startup 230

The Next Web

OCTOBER 7, 2013

“It kinda sucks to be engineer #1.”. That’s what a couple of my friends – engineers at Google and Bloomberg who have been following the rise of startup culture with intrigue – told me recently. They were referring to non-founder engineers, most commonly the first hire for technology businesses. Engineer #1?

Engineer 129

Engineer Dilution Option Pool Vesting 129

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 24, 2011

CEO brought in to replace the founder, 5 - 10% CTO, CFO, VP of Marketing or Sales, 1.5 - 3% Chief Engineer or Architect, 1 - 1.5% Advisory Board Member, 1% Senior Engineer,3 -.7% Offers near the high end of a range will come with a lower cash salary, maybe even 50% of the going rate. 7% Product Manager,2 -.3%

Equity 234

Equity Advisory Board Stock Options Stock 234

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 29, 2015

CEO brought in to replace the founder, 5 - 10% CTO, CFO, VP of Marketing or Sales, 1.5 - 3% Chief Engineer or Architect, 1 - 1.5% Advisory Board Member, 1% Senior Engineer,3 -.7% Offers near the high end of a range will likely come with a lower cash salary, maybe even 50% of the going rate. 7% Product Manager,2 -.3%

Stock Options 120

Stock Options Stock Advisory Board Startup 120

www.instigatorblog.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

This is especially true when you think of a tech startup, where the first few hires are typically engineers/programmers. I do believe that early employees should trade salary for equity. And if the equity values increase, it provides more reasonable wiggle room between salary and equity. 1% is just not a lot. Not a bad payday.

Equity 41

Equity Employee Startup Vesting 41

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 20, 2010

CEO brought in to replace the founder, 5 - 10% CTO, CFO, VP of Marketing or Sales, 1.5 - 3% Chief Engineer or Architect, 1 - 1.5% Advisory Board Member, 1% Senior Engineer,3 -.7% Offers near the high end of a range will come with a lower cash salary, maybe even 50% of the going rate. 7% Product Manager,2 -.3%

Stock 144

Stock Stock Options Advisory Board Startup 144

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 26, 2010

Don’t raise just to get a salary or because you need to pay for servers. Nivi Babak , VentureHacks: As much as possible while keeping your dilution under 20%, preferably under 15%, and, even better, under 10%. The presentation did’t touch these in depth but I think it’s worth mentioning some of the points.

Elevator Pitch 102

Elevator Pitch Incubator Technical Review Startup 102

Hunter Walker

JANUARY 15, 2016

Though I should point out was still doing client work for OneMatchFire until mid-2005 until the business could pay full salaries. So I was thrilled to find CleverPet , an AI game for dogs made by animal behavioral scientists and electrical engineers. It just took another 1st place at CES.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Startup Cofounder SMS 48

Berkonomics

APRIL 4, 2024

Compensation’s charter is to approve stock option grants for any employee, no matter how small the grant, and all salary and benefits for at least the CEO if not the next level down, to avoid conflict of interest with the CEO. I engineered the extraction of the outside investors, even at a near total loss.

Covenant 48

Covenant Software Review Stock Options Vesting 48

Austin Startup

NOVEMBER 25, 2018

It was then profitable, but of course we weren’t paying ourselves salaries (unlike my consulting gig). I built the eCommerce engine myself and self-funded the business. I failed to do that with Coremetrics and I paid dearly for it with dilution. Still in business today and run by my co-founder. The third was InSite Solutions.

Bootstrapping 48

Bootstrapping Austin Equity Cofounder 48

www.payne.org

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

3 Dilution. 7 Salary vs Equity. Those new shares are created out of thin air by the company, and will dilute all of the current stockholders. Since you still have 100,000 shares, your ownership percentage is now dropped to 0.8333% -- you just got diluted. In a startup, dilution happens, and you just need to factor it in.

Equity 56

Equity Employee Vesting Preferred Stock 56

David Teten

JANUARY 21, 2021

Jonathan Bragdon , CEO, describes Capacity as “a team of founders-turned-funders making non-dilutive, founder-aligned investments of $50-$300k in post-startup, post-revenue businesses planning to 2X revenues in 12-24 months. We determine a salary cap with the founder based on a software engineer in the closest major city.

Equity 78

Equity Revenue Cofounder Colorado 78

The Next Web

OCTOBER 10, 2013

Too dilutive.”. Three of my cofounders are engineering masterminds (with various skillsets.) It’s obvious that a company building an online backup service and its own cloud storage platform requires strong engineering talent. To start Backblaze, all five of us committed to a year without salary. Too many.”.

Cofounder 143

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Kenya Dilution 143

www.startupnorth.ca

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Lead Engineer 0.5 – 1 5+ years experience Engineer 0.33 – 0.66 Manager or Junior Engineer 0.2 – 0.33 I would assume that they are very similar but given the lower valuations and this may change the salary/options mix. How many early employees are forgoing salary? Are the percentages different?

Employee 41

Employee Founder Salary Equity 41

thinkspace.com

SEPTEMBER 7, 2012

Lead Engineer 0.5 - 1. 5+ years Experience Engineer 0.33 - 0.66. Manager or Junior Engineer 0.2 - 0.33. Should founders have anti-dilution rights? The salary offered (and accepted) was quite low. You would want to check and see if your shares can be diluted. Dilution should occur across the board.

Equity 62

Equity Employee Founder CTO Hire 62

The Next Web

OCTOBER 3, 2012

I have heard many founders — even in the first few months of product development — expect to raise seed rounds, pay themselves salaries, etc. There is no doubt about it — startups offer some amazing opportunities to exercise Computer Science and Systems Engineering knowledge. This simply is not the right attitude.

Cofounder 155

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Technical Review Software Review 155

blog.nahurst.com

JULY 19, 2010

Compensation is probably between $0 and a ramen salary. This is an area that varies widely and can significantly impact how much equity a technical cofounder receives (if they take more salary). I assume both cofounders will be diluted equally as more employees and investors get involved. I am now pulling in 8 figures.

Technical Cofounder 43

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Equity Salary 43

The Next Web

AUGUST 19, 2013

Mikita Mikado is a software engineer and entrepreneur from Belarus, now based in San Francisco. It’s always better to be earn money, not just raise it, as money you earn doesn’t dilute your ownership and reassures your investors. I’m a geek and software engineer from the former ­Soviet state of Belarus.

Belarus 137

Belarus Viral Channel Startup 137

Berkonomics

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

Compensation’s charter is to approve stock option grants for any employee, no matter how small the grant, and all salary and benefits for at least the CEO if not the next level down, to avoid conflict of interest with the CEO. I engineered the extraction of the outside investors, even at a near total loss.

Covenant 59

Covenant Software Review Stock Options Vesting 59

This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 6, 2017

How excited will a female engineer or a marketing professional of color be to be the first non-white male hired when the team is already ten or fifteen people? That's how you learn when a COO should come in, or that you need a release engineer when you're managing a suite of apps, or when a second PM can be helpful.

Hiring 110

Hiring Lead Generation Dilution PR 110

www.paulgraham.com

APRIL 28, 2010

Whatkind of anti-dilution protection do they want? The angel now owns 200/1200 shares, or a sixth of thecompany, and all the previous shareholders percentage ownershipis diluted by a sixth. They pay him the smallest salary he canlive on, plus 3% of the company in restricted stock, vesting overfour years. (So Hell if they know.In

Technical Review 76

Technical Review Startup Software Review Angel Investor 76

www.paulgraham.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

You make elaborate plans for a product, hire a team of engineers to develop it (people who do this tend to use the term "engineer" for hackers), and then find after a year that youve spent two milliondollars to develop something no one wants. They get the same kind of stock and get diluted the same amount in futurerounds.

Startup 105

Startup Cofounder Software Stock 105

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

If you’re looking for a designer, engineer, or biz marketing guy – go to meetups / conferences that those people would go to. With that live, you’ll be able to show other smart engineers and advisors that you’re willing to take some risk and build something. Co-founders are the highest form of dilution to a business.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

The increase in companies spreads out great engineering and product talent into many more companies (many not likely to succeed) versus consolidating resources fewer, more transformational companies. Plus, down rounds trigger anti-dilution provisions. Smart investors and smart entrepreneurs prefer this phase of the market.

Valuation 150

Valuation Down Round Startup Later Stage 150

Diego Basch

MAY 1, 2013

” If during all that time Joe had been working as hard as the founders while making a shitty salary, he will feel like he got a raw deal. This raises an obvious question: why did Joe take a shitty salary, a comparatively small equity stake, and then proceed to work as hard as a founder?

Silicon Valley 59

Silicon Valley Employee Cofounder Salary 59

Hunter Walker

NOVEMBER 25, 2022

Recently in speaking with an engineering manager candidate who had been working at later stage/public companies, we got to discussing compensation. Well, I’ll probably do my pro rata in the A, then take some dilution, so let’s figure I own 4% when it’s all said and done. 4%, to use same dilution multiple.

Salary 56

Salary Burn Rate Dilution Equity 56