[webwright]

Jeeez, guys. Take it easy.

A job is a package-- money, equity, work/life balance, autonomy, authority, etc.

I personally agree that they might be a bit "penny wise, pound foolish" here - you have to spend money to succeed, and saving 10-40k on your first hire might be a really bad idea.

That being said, there are plenty of people out there (somewhere between naive and idealistic) who would happily dive into a startup for much lower cash compensation for the other benefits (whether they are equity or less tangible). There are also plenty of just-graduated wunderkind who might have the chops they are looking for but not the experience to command a monster salary.

And look hard at geography here: http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=php+javascript+css%0D%0A&l=... (check the salary estimate on the left)

At the end of the day, these guys clearly made some missteps. They should change their tune a bit. But try to treat them like you'd want to be treated when you (publicly) screw up with your venture.

[nostrademons]

I think that the money is a giant red-herring here, but these guys have unfortunately chosen to validate it by responding to it.

When I evaluate a startup, the two things I care about are the idea and the team. If you're doing something world-changing (or even just "really cool") and I like & respect you, I don't care what the money is. I'll even work for free (well, for decent equity).

If you have a good team but a shitty idea, I'd work there if a.) I'm an employee, getting paid decently, and am likely to learn much or b.) I'm a cofounder, personal friends with you, and you're flexible about shifting the idea. This actually describes both my previous startup and my previous employer.

I only care about money if you have neither a good team nor a good idea - but in this case, I'm just putting in time, and you probably don't want me as an employee. Hell, I probably wouldn't want to be an employee in this situation - life's too short to waste it collecting paychecks.

Raganwald wrote a neat piece a while back about uncovering the "hidden objection" and responding to that, instead of answering the sales prospect's verbal objection. People here are objecting to the money issue because it's obvious.

But it wouldn't even be an issue if it weren't for other problems with the startup. This is lead-management software with 2 bizdev guys on the team. It's totally unsexy. We don't know anything about the technical cofounder and what he's previously accomplished. It's unlikely that there'll be hard technical problems that'll provide a good learning experience.

If there were indications that the rest of the package was kick-ass, nobody would care about the money. But all the discussion so far has been about the money, so that's all we have to go on.

[Tritis]

You missed some follow up information. The person who wrote the original post is the only salaried employee (barely above market average) and has no equity or options within the company. They are looking for someone to come on with a less than enticing salary, put their heart and soul into the project and be happy with the praise from the founders along with a smaller-than-should-be paycheck. Especially with the list of skills they want. They're basically asking for a gung-ho all-in hire who will get nothing more than a commemorative photo in a matte frame if the company takes off.

It isn't the money. It's the demands their listing puts on the new hire and the inadequate compensation they offer in return.

[auston]

This is very valuable feedback. I really appreciate it (I'm wondering whether I'm still on everyone's down-mod list).

[fbbwsa]

incidentally, i still think somebody should write an article about what the community thinks is "Fair" compensation.

Skip past the "it depends" dialogue (which granted is important), and describe some border cases:

1. founders are jerks/morons, no faith in idea 2. founders are cool, but morons, no faith in idea 3. founders are cool, smart, misguided idea that might be able to be changed to work 4. founders are good + good idea

in case 1, i suspect most people only work for money in case 4, i suspect some people will be willing to work for equity or money or some combination.

In case 1, the "compensation" including money probably has to be higher to put up with a crappy job.

In case 4, how much $ would it take in a "salary only" situation. In a split, how much equity and salary would you require?

2 and 3 are somewhere in between.

I've always been curious what people think fair compensation is for early stage startups.

[kalvin]

This is such an insightful comment. Applause.

The Raganwald article: http://weblog.raganwald.com/2007/01/what-ive-learned-from-sa...

"This is the first part of “What I’ve Learned From Sales.” In this part, “Don’t Feed the Trolls,” I present my explanation for why people act like “trolls,” raising objection after objection to new ideas, and I suggest how to side-step this behaviour and deal directly with their concerns."

[strlen]

You're asking people to treat this company better than they're treating their prospective employees. They call a developer greedy and self-entitled and when confronted, did the same again (for even a broader group of people).

If they stopped calling people greedy/entitled/trying to blame the U.S. society (vs. themselves) and simply stated "we're early stage, we're looking for a first employee to take on founder level risk with us".