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Startup with 2 non-technical co-founders

1 pointsby fatalerrorx3over 13 years ago
Hi All,<p>I've been working on a startup in the healthcare IT space for about 8-9 months. I started initially as a contracted developer, but over the last 2 months I was transitioned to be employee #1, on the payroll.<p>I was given a small portion of equity in the company (1.5%, plus an addtl 1.5% over the next 3 quarters, half of which should be vested by now), and I'm being paid a pretty nice salary for the work that I'm doing.<p>The thing is that based on the paper work that I signed I've been given the title of "VP in charge of technology development" when I feel like I have more of a CTO/Technical Co-founder role. I feel like upon launch if this service becomes successful that someone else will be hired for that position and will be given more of a stake in the company that I currently hold, even though I've been doing all the work in developing the product/platform from scratch.<p>Is this standard operating procedure? I know titles right now are irrelevant since we haven't yet launched publicly or even in a limited beta, but I want to make sure I don't get screwed out of a position that I feel I deserve. What is a standard stake of equity for employee #1 who happens to be the technical developer creating the product/service? I'm kind of naive when it comes to money and equity since I'm only 23 and this is my first startup, so I kind of just agreed with whatever was given, because up until now I had no past startup experience so I wasn't sure what to expect and figured anything was better than nothing.<p>Also to mention that we haven't yet raised any outside VC funding, it's all self-funded by the co-founders right now, but one of the co-founders has connections with VCs from his past job

1 comment

gamechangrover 13 years ago
In my experience, employee #1 gets "a pretty nice salary" and little to no equity or they get a 20-30% equity split that pays nothing until launch.<p>There is no way to secure a major role after funding. I have a couple friends who "wrote it into the contract" and in one situation the VC just brought in "an assistant director" that was paid three times what he was.<p>Sounds like you are getting a good deal, but I would be upfront about your desire for a future role.