[t_hinman_esq]

Dilution is a natural part of the growing process of any startup, and typically if you're experiencing dilution it's because you are gaining something in return - cash, in the case of investors, or sweat equity in the case of employees. There isn't an exact science to dilution/valuation in most cases, especially in the very early stages. You need to sell as much/as little of the company as is required in order to secure the resources you need to be successful. Owning 100% of something that isn't particularly is always going to be worse than owning 1% of a billion dollar company.

That said, there are generally some norms around percentages for co-founders, and employee option grants can be benchmarked against comp data that you can find in Carta or Pave.

Happy to chat more if that would be helpful!