Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 25, 2019

Many employees forget that there isn’t even a market for startup stock, until after the company has gone public, which hasn’t happened positively to many companies in the last few years. 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%

Equity 237

Equity Stock Options Advisory Board Stock 237

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 29, 2015

Many employees forget that there isn’t even a market for startup stock, until after the company has gone public, which hasn’t happened positively to many companies in the last few years. 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% It’s a huge gamble.

Stock Options 120

Stock Options Stock Advisory Board Startup 120

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 25, 2012

Is the entire sector destined to a sudden and quick demise, similar to the dot-com bust of 2001, with widespread stock market collapses and mass layoffs? Most of the costs incurred by Microsoft in developing new versions of Windows involve paying engineers to write software codes. These costs are largely fixed.

Technical Review 155

Technical Review United States Software Review China 155

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 1, 2010

The very last email I got from him told me the following: Thank you for your time Tony, I understand everyone wants a huge salary, no risk and a cut of the profits. However, when I told him that the level of engagement required from me and the fact that equity-only development was required, he seemed to be a bit offended.

Technical Cofounder 241

Technical Cofounder CTO Hire Equity Sweat Equity 241

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 20, 2010

Many employees forget that there isn’t even a market for stock, until after the company has gone public, which hasn’t happened to many companies in the last few years. Thus, stock doesn’t “pay the mortgage” today, so to speak. Advisory Board Member, 1% Senior Engineer,3 -.7% 7% Product Manager,2 -.3% Marty Zwilling.

Stock 144

Stock Stock Options Advisory Board Startup 144

www.joelonsoftware.com

MARCH 24, 2010

Fog Creek explicitly recognizes that many good software engineers have no desire whatsoever to do "management" or to take on a formal personnel management role. One of the purposes of the Fog Creek Professional Ladder is to create a career path with promotions for engineers who simply do not want to do management stuff at all.

Software Review 48

Software Review Stock Options Salary Technical Review 48

Hunter Walker

MAY 13, 2023

per engineer.” Especially in the early days of mobile/iOS engineering, if you hired strong technical talent into your early stage company, you basically created an acquisition outcome floor. “Worst case scenario we’ll sell to a larger startup or public company for about ~$1.5m of the time my answer is no f **g way].

Early Stage 117

Early Stage Cap Table Acquisition Sales 117

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

DECEMBER 12, 2011

stock, performance bonuses) are preferred to guaranteed earnings (e.g. salary, benefits). It’s happening now at WP Engine.). You’re not hiring a Systems Engineer III for IBM or a Senior Regional Sales Manager for Dell. Potential earnings (e.g. But normal people do have a choice and most people abhor chaos.

Hiring 282

Hiring Employee Ruby Java 282

keen.io

FEBRUARY 5, 2013

Engineer, arranger, communicator, amateur photographer. For example: Don’t accept equity compensation (stock shares) without knowing the percentage of the company you’ll own. And if the CEO says, “Salaries will be adjusted to market value soon,” that’s probably a best-case scenario. Michelle Wetzler. Follow @michellewetzler.

Salary 50

Salary Equity Startup San Francisco 50

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 24, 2011

Many employees forget that there isn’t even a market for stock, until after the company has gone public, which hasn’t happened to many companies in the last few years. Thus, stock doesn’t “pay the mortgage” today, so to speak. Advisory Board Member, 1% Senior Engineer,3 -.7% 7% Product Manager,2 -.3%

Equity 234

Equity Advisory Board Stock Options Stock 234

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

My ex-boss was going to be the VP of Engineering and I would report to the CEO whose marketing acumen and sales instincts seemed at the time to be telepathic and sense of theater was legend. Our vision was that just as the PC was revolutionizing the business market, we were going to do the same for scientists and engineers.

North Carolina 125

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 125

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

DECEMBER 21, 2009

For example, I'm an engineer, so my first answer to "Why don't you have more customers?" If you honestly can't imagine that there's anything a full-time person could do that would generate enough revenue to cover their salary, that's not a bad thing. It could be a new partner willing to work for stock. Cartoon by Andertoons.

Startup 315

Startup Revenue Cofounder Sales 315

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 2, 2015

Stock option top-ups after a few years are vital retention mechanisms. People care about salary increases and benchmarking to market and even if you can’t pay market you sure as hell better know what “market” is. Yet being a buttoned up company requires all this. And it turns out that employee reviews matter.

Operations 150

Operations Metrics Early Stage Non-Compete 150

Ben's Blog

OCTOBER 6, 2011

Interestingly, one of the first things that you learn when you run an engineering organization is that a good Quality Assurance organization cannot build a high quality product, but it can tell you when the development team builds a low quality product. Do managers and recruiters follow up with candidates in a timely fashion? Compensation.

Management 78

Management Development Team Review Stock Options Technical Review 78

Hearpreneur

APRIL 12, 2019

Before becoming a business owner I used to be a manager at the Boeing company and managed a team of engineers working on the 787 Dreamliner. No matter how well my team did I knew that at the end of the year I would earn a predetermined salary with a small bonus that was based on the company stock performance.

Entrepreneur 128

Entrepreneur St. Louis Florida Colorado 128

The Startup Magazine

AUGUST 6, 2021

For instance, Steve Jobs had no engineering skill, but he had clear design ideas and knew how to build a great brand. If your vision is powerful enough, you can make up for this by offering recruits stock options. You cannot be a hero for all seasons, you need others to reduce the load off your shoulders.

Limited Liability Company 163

Limited Liability Company Silicon Valley Business Model Stock Options 163

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 7, 2018

Once you have collected the appropriate data, build a profile that includes a stock image as well as a name. Turn to Pay-Per-Click Advertising to Rank in the Search Engines. After all, you will have little presence in the search engines, which can result in minimal traffic to your website. You need to know your customers’: Age.

Customer 118

Customer PPC Startup Advertising 118

Ben's Blog

MAY 18, 2012

Aaron Patzer, founder of Mint, expressed the sentiment well when he said: “ When valuing a startup, add $500k for every engineer, and subtract $250k for every MBA.” Engineers run most technology startups and that’s great. But it is important to recognize that engineers tend to look at the world from the product out.

Hiring 78

Hiring Silicon Valley Engineer Demand 78

Steve Blank

MAY 20, 2010

The legendary VC was too busy to sit on our board, so we got another younger partner in his firm with seemingly the right pedigree – engineering degree, MBA, lots of boards, etc. We’d like to adjust our salaries to reflect the new pay scale.” But as we would find out the hard way – zero experience as an entrepreneur. Never Forget.

Founder 275

Founder Cofounder Salary Naming 275

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

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

www.avc.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

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. Then you multiply the employee's base salary by the multiplier to get to a dollar value of equity.

Equity 64

Equity Employee CTO Hire Fractional CTO 64

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 1, 2010

Everyone at our startup was working on startup starvation salaries, and Bob had taken a large pay cut to join us. The engineers were pulling off miracles on a daily basis, we were all taking fumes for salaries, but our payoff will be when our stock is worth something. No bonuses in a startup. Lessons Learned.

Japan 225

Japan Asia Silicon Valley Salary 225

Austin Startup

AUGUST 20, 2017

They’re looking to be paid properly in the context of the overall salary structure, including cash, benefits, and equity, and to be paid commensurate with performance. I’m never surprised when I see product development driven by engineers proceeding at top speed developing the next cool thing. Don’t be the plaid guy. Paisley is OK.)

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Software Review Cap Table Securities and Exchange Commission 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

Hearpreneur

JANUARY 21, 2017

It was definitely a huge leap to leave the corporate world (and the salary and security that comes with it) and start a company. So I decided to become an Entrepreneur and start my own company for people who wanted to learn about trading in the Stock Market. 11 – US Army Classified as a Computer Engineer.

Entrepreneur 48

Entrepreneur Investment Bankers PR Social Media 48

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

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

To turn your company’s stock into cash, you engaged a top-notch investment bank (Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs) and/or their Silicon Valley compatriots (Hambrecht & Quist, Montgomery Securities, Robertson Stephens). The founders along with all the other employees would vest their stock over 4 years (earning 1/48 a month).

Founder 245

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 245

searchengineland.com

MAY 30, 2012

More Search Engines. The engineer who can get this question is surprisingly rare, but amazingly valuable. Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Goodbye Google+ People & Pages, Hello Knowledge Graph Box Who Has Search Engine Marketers Backs? Search Features.

SEO 54

SEO SEM Social Media Search 54

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 1, 2016

We all know that we use renewal to be thoughtful about our futures so why not take the time this week to take stock in where you want to be a year from now and what steps you could take personally to make a difference. You can’t just overpay every person’s salary. It’s a new year – 2016. Conviction.

Leadership 150

Leadership Southern California San Diego Hiring 150

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. Still in business today and run by my co-founder. I sold $5,000 of banner advertising within one week of launching the site. The third was InSite Solutions.

Bootstrapping 48

Bootstrapping Austin Equity Cofounder 48

www.payne.org

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

2 Stock Classes: Common and Preferred. 5 Stock vs Options. 6 Founders / Restricted Stock. 7 Salary vs Equity. The re-heating of the venture funded tech market has pushed a heat up of the hiring market, and Im getting more calls from friends asking for help understanding startup stock (equity) offers. 3 Dilution.

Equity 56

Equity Employee Vesting Preferred Stock 56

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 7, 2017

A suitable replacement is too rare; it takes too long to find someone, convince them to join for almost no salary, and get them up-to-speed and productive. Which means they have to stock large amounts of gasoline. Early on, a 10x person can mint the company but also could be irreplaceable. Again this is what advanced data centers do.

Software Review 294

Software Review Channel Revenue Non-Compete 294

The Startup Magazine

AUGUST 18, 2018

stockings or work watches ) which are bought by the employee and paid back by the employer should be added to the employee’s earnings and PAYE tax should be paid, however, Class 1 National Insurance is not applicable. Other occupations which are considerably higher than the £60 are engineers and carpenter.

Employee 61

Employee Salary Revenue Stock 61

ConversionXL

MARCH 3, 2016

What this report will tell you: This report lets you analyze paid search performance against goal conversions by search engine, which is incredibly powerful if you advertise often and across multiple engines. Above, I’ve removed the source filter to see data from all search engines vs. just Google. PPC Keywords.

Analytics 48

Analytics Customer PPC Metrics 48

www.mint.com

MARCH 9, 2010

Go there now » Sign up or log in to mint.com Updates Drop Your Debt to Win 2 comments How To The Top 5 Customer Complaint Letters — And What You Can Learn From Them 5 comments Investing In Graphics: What Is a Stock? Has anyone in the engineering team actually shipped a product? 2 comments Mint Life Know your money.

Software Review 68

Software Review Startup Post-Money Valuation Technical Review 68

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2010

the loan converts at 15-20% discout to the new money coming in) or your investor will get “warrant coverage&# which is similar to an employee stock option in that it gives the investor the right but not the obligation to invest in your company in the future at a defined priced. They might not replace an engineer or two that quits.

Startup 290

Startup Burn Rate Warrant Bankruptcy 290