We also don't have a lot left in the bank (though we are trying to fundraise at the moment) and we do outsource some bits. Given how early we are, external help only goes so far - a lot of time it has just been a waste of money since the hourly contractors we work with aren't as invested and don't have the full picture the founders do.
I'm the CTO of a pre-seed startup. I've been working with my co-founder who's the CEO for about a year. We're both first time founders in our mid-30s with wife/kids. No prior work history together (though we worked at the same company). It's just the two of us right now and some freelancers/consultants at the company.My co-founder is extroverted, great at schmoozing with people and forming...
Spouse was on my health insurance. She works as a part time government contractor. No benefits.
I left my job a week ago and I'm based out of California. My employer's health insurance runs till the end of the month and after that I need to figure something out. I'm a solo founder right now just coding and bootstrapping everything.These are the health insurance options I've come across so far:1. Cobra (ends up being $900 per month in my case)2. Any option at coveredca.com. The lowest...
My co-founder and I are discussing options for achieving some cash liquidity in exchange for our equity midway through our startup journey. We imagine we can sell some of our common stock to investors. Some questions on this:* Can this founder equity sale only be done at a fundraise or can it be done anytime? What's the typical practice or HN's recommendation here?* What price can we expect to...
In this guide to seed fundraising (https://www.ycombinator.com/library/4A-a-guide-to-seed-fundraising), YC advises not to give out more than 25% of equity to investors at the seed stage. Besides the obvious loss of founder stake, what are the other downstream implications of giving out a higher equity stake?Let's say I hypothetically give ~40% of my company to the seed stage (or pre-seed)...
I'm in the process of testing out a few ideas and want to get a quick pulse on user needs in a statistically useful and out-of-my-social-bubble kind of way. So I turned to surveys via Qualtrics.I've gone the usual route of sharing an anonymous link to the survey via social media and asking friends and family to re-share.What are some other time and cost effective ways of getting the survey link...
Kind of yes. Market rate (I'm also FAANG) with less equity or vice-versa. The equity ceiling is at 10%. The way I'm thinking about it is that given the amount of risk at this early stage with no prototype, customers or revenue and the amount of work involved, the expected pay-off for the time and stress isn't quite transformational for me.
I don't believe in giving up work-life balance and cutting my pay in half for the "startup experience". I wouldn't go pay 100k+ tuition for a degree in "startups" - whatever that means.
That's right.
> Do you know how much equity they have? How big is this "founders pool" of equity?
They're saving approximately 7% for ESOP and proposing < 10% equity for me depending on my base salary with co-founder title and may be a board seat later.
I think I agree with what you're saying. It does feel like a regular post-funding early hire.
This is for a tech company that has a CEO and a CPO without a prototype, customers or any other full-time hires. They are about to close on their seed funding though and I'll be joining after right after that. The equity will be from the founders pool and the salary is somewhat negotiable between 100k-200k per year before taxes. In terms of the other founders, one of them has a gotten their...