[chatmasta]

5-10% is common in my experience for an early employee with a “co-founder” title at company at this stage. Critically, they already raised money, so you are not taking as much risk as the founders. You are an employee, and a founder in title only.

That said, my approach would be to offer them two options. Either they give you 5% with a market rate (100k+) salary, or they give you 15% with the shit salary. They can’t afford to pay you market rate, so they’ll choose the shit salary, but likely bring you down to 11%.

It all comes down to what you’re worth to them. If they’re screwed without you, and you are prepared to walk away, then you’ll get the terms you want.

Keep in mind that 5%, or 15% or even 90% will likely be worth nothing ever. Money now is good. The pivot is a bad sign. If they can’t afford to pay you beyond a shit salary, that’s a bad sign too. It sounds like the founders have no direction and just want to coast along until their VC money dries up.

[Lindathefounder]

You're right, though it got me thinking about what is the actual offer... If they are offering 5% this might mean much less. After the 1m round, there is an expected dilution of 25%. Additionaly, the ESOP will have to be refilled (since I will be getting most of it) which will dilute with another 10%... My current estimate is that if N is what they are offering me than the real offering is expressed by N(1-N)0.75. So if they are offering 5% this actually means 3.5%. Im wondering if they take this into consideration when they say "fully diluted".