A startup company wants you to work for free, but it will give you 1% equity in exchange, which sounds like a scam to you. You are glad that you finally chose your current startup. Although you still don't get any salary, at least you joined the company as a co-founder and held double-digit shares in the company. Sometimes I joke with my partners and discuss which island I want to buy after selling my equity for hundreds of millions in a few years.
In the past few years, some changes have taken place, which makes more and more people want to join startups. This craze seems to have started with the release of The Social Network (20 10), the prototype of which originated from mark zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook. Of course, this may be a coincidence, but I can imagine a group of MBAs watching Justin Timberlake's sean parker thinking that it's really cool to have a billion dollars.
When people choose which startup to work for, they often ignore one of the most important factors-the size and stage of the company. I even think that sometimes this factor is more important than the industry and the entrepreneurial idea itself.
Self-reliance stage (also known as two people sharing a bedroom stage)
At this stage, the startup company has just been established, and it may not even be registered in the legal sense. The company doesn't have any funds yet, and no one gets paid. As an initial employee of the company, you may have two or three or four people huddled in a small bedroom, working all day and eating baked beans, just to make a prototype of the product and show it to your potential users and investors as soon as possible. Only some sympathetic friends or mothers of you and your partner will use your website or app.
As early as a year ago, someone tried to persuade you to join another startup company, but they had no funds and no users. They want you to work for free, but they give you 1% equity in exchange, which sounds like a scam to you. You are glad that you finally chose your current startup. Although you still don't get any salary, at least you joined the company as a co-founder and held double-digit shares in the company. You sometimes joke with your partners, and after a few years, you will sell hundreds of millions of shares and which island to buy.
The product vision is vague and broad, but you try your best to prove its feasibility to your potential customers every day. Anything is possible. The whole development direction of the company may change every week.
Because nothing exists yet, you need to invest a lot of energy and simple self-confidence to turn all your imagination into reality. There is no special division of labor and hierarchy within the company, and everyone needs to be a generalist, which is very exciting.
Of course, it will sometimes make you feel very tired to stay in this state for months or even years before you discover the customer's needs and introduce funds.
Seed round financing
Now your company has a prototype product, some sticky users and about 250 thousand pounds of seed money. This fund can already be used to pay some lower wages to your employees. Because there are too many of you now to fit in one bedroom, you will start renting some desks and chairs in the work area, or ask for office space and facilities from larger startups.
You have taken many shortcuts, but it seems that there is still a lot of work to be done. People you don't know before start using your products, which makes you feel great. You are working very hard to spread information, and you may even start trying to make some profits from your first paying user.
When you join the company at this stage, you will get 3% equity and a basic salary that can meet your basic needs. Just tell me which city you will buy a house in after the company shares are sold.
You may have joined as the first professional engineer or designer, but at this stage, you still have to finish the work on your own. Since there is no specialist to worry about ordering equipment, your first task is to go to the Apple store and buy yourself a laptop. There is no more experienced colleagues to guide the training, and there is no code check, just because the company is too small.
A "marketing campaign" involves a founder of your company sending an email to TechCrunch about your company's financial statements.
As a member of the company, although the business model that the company should adopt is also changing greatly in your mind, you still have a certain say in the direction of the company. Even if you are not involved in the decision-making process, you can know the result immediately.
Of course, this company may go bankrupt because it has not found a reasonable product-market positioning and can't get more money. Your mother will tell you that you should continue to do your well-paid job in Oracle Bone Inscriptions.
A round of financing
At this stage, the company has raised about 3 million pounds from a famous VC, and the team has also expanded to 10- 15 people. You will have your own office space with your own logo printed on the door. At worst, you can have your own area in the work area.
Investors will ask you to submit a quarterly cash flow statement, so you start bookkeeping for the first time. Anyone who has installed Excel on the computer can complete this task.
The company finally hired an office director to reduce the administrative burden of the founder. They began to provide payroll and study working conditions.
You joined this startup to do a specific position, but it took you 1 ~ 2 weeks to figure out what you really should do. But at least they remember to buy you a notebook, a table and a chair.
There are about three or four engineers in the team, so you start to check the code, set up an integrated server and work for a long time. You are deeply saddened by all kinds of technical errors accumulated by the "idiots" who entered the company before you, which greatly slowed down the development of requirements.
The development direction of the company's new products will be decided in a small-scale meeting of the three founders, and then announced at the "general meeting" of 12 people. The company put forward a quarterly product roadmap, and you were asked which one you think should be given priority. Finally, you chose the project that interests you most.
You can certainly earn more salary in a big company, but the current salary is enough for you to live a good life. You got a 0.5% option and a basic salary below the market price 10% ~ 30%. But you guess it's worth the risk-if you sell the shares in the company, you can buy a great house in London. Of course, I feel that this day is still far away.
Marketing functions are all handled by a full-time employee, including public relations, paid advertising and social media. The founder of the company no longer runs the company's Twitter account personally. Your company's name will appear in articles about "worthy of attention" in science and technology media from time to time.
You have thousands of paying users, and it's amazing to see people using your application in public places from time to time. Your mother still doesn't understand what your company does, but it still makes her happy because you are starting to get a decent salary.
B round of financing
Now the company has been established for 2-3 years, and the financing is about1~ 20 million pounds. The company used this money to expand the team, and the number of team members has risen to about 60.
The founder is fed up with the dark and shabby office environment. They spent a lot of money to buy an office with exposed concrete structure and transparent glass walls, and everyone sat in Herman Miller's chair. You can find out on the Internet that the price of each chair is about 1000.
There are about 3 ~ 4 employees in finance and human resources related positions. When you join the company, you will get a company brochure. You will attend the training for a few days, but only in the process of work will you gradually understand everything.
There is now a digital advertising specialist in the market direction, and the employees are also subdivided into public relations management, content management and community management. You have millions of paying users in different countries, and your company has become a frequent visitor to various media business pages.
The engineering team is divided into 2 ~ 3 independent teams, all of which begin to recruit fresh graduates and complete the recruitment plan ahead of schedule.
When you are recruited by the team leader, you are assigned to a position with clear responsibilities. You met the founders during the interview, but they didn't always remember your name when you joined. The CEO will meet with the management director every two weeks.
The new product direction will be discussed at the board meeting and then conveyed to the top management by the CEO. The management will let his team members know that change is coming. Most people in the company focus on "repetitive processes" and scale expansion.
The company gradually stops introducing new features frequently, but your app has been used by your mother's friends, which makes your mother very proud.
Your salary is similar to that offered by other companies in the market, and you will have a 0.05% option. You have decided which house you want to buy with your savings when the stock is sold. It seems that being acquired at some stage is inevitable.
C round financing
You joined a unicorn company! After five years of development, the company has raised nearly 1 billion pounds of funds, with a valuation of about 1 billion pounds. There are some strange terms in the transaction structure that you have never heard of, but the HR department says these are "legal matters".
When you joined the company, you were given options worth 50,000 pounds, which is about 0.005% of the company's option pool. Your friends in other startups remind you to find out what the investor's liquidation priority income is, but no one in the company seems to be able to tell you this. Colleagues in the company are busy guessing when the company will go public. You think any kind of dividend is a good welfare. Anyway, the salary is already very good.
You joined the company's newly established Dublin office, which is part of the company's internationalization strategy. When you joined, you were one of six sales assistants in charge of the European market. Before you are allowed to talk to any customers, you will receive four weeks of intensive induction training.
The new office feels a little empty at first, but soon you are shocked by the speed at which new employees fill the office. You asked where the marketing department should sit, and the answer was that it was all in another office.
You saw the photo of the CEO on the cover of Forbes magazine, but you never really met him.
Your mother has been using this application for a long time, but compared with the new products developed by newly established startups shown on TechCrunch, this application has begun to become a bit outdated.
According to the revealed business insider, the company has fired the newly appointed product VP and started to follow up the new product direction. She just transferred to this company from Twitter six months ago. An internal memo issued by the human resources department a few days ago shows that the company is undergoing a small-scale internal restructuring.
You see consultants sitting in the conference room, but you don't know what they are doing.
A month later, you are called to attend a staff meeting broadcast on TV. The first scene is at the company headquarters. The CEO delivered a short speech, telling everyone that the company had been acquired by Oracle Bone Inscriptions Company. He also explained why doing so can accelerate the company's ability to realize its vision. Finally, he thanked every employee for being a part of the company's magical journey. Then someone in the audience began to cry.
Then HR explained that as part of the acquisition, some departments would be laid off. You are told that your options will be reduced. When you search what this means on Google, you will find that your options are worthless. Some of your friends in the engineering department got some Oracle Bone Inscriptions shares as a "retention bonus", but this benefit does not apply to people in the sales department. You have to ask yourself, why did you join the startup at that time?
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