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Show HN: I was laid off, so I built a NerdWallet for startup equity liquidity
(strikerates.com)
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9 points
by rafaelvalle03
92 days ago
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I was a software engineer at a late stage startup and was caught in a layoff this January. When I looked into exercising my options or getting liquidity, I realized the secondary market is a total black box.
Liquidity funds spend a fortune on Google Ads just to find people like us. Those high marketing costs eventually come out of our pockets in the form of higher fees and worse terms. I built StrikeRates to change that. The site is meant to be a central resource for anyone navigating this. I included a Liquidity 101 section that explains the different financial vehicles because that information is hard to find in one place. I also built a Liquidity Provider Directory and a Compare Tool so people can see their options side by side. The Equity Scenario Modeler is currently in beta. I would love feedback on the logic and the math from this community. The real point of the site is the Waitlist. My goal is to aggregate enough demand to signal that we are a group worth competing for. If we can prove volume, we can force these funds to stop spending so much on ads and move them toward a flat monthly fee instead. This should lower the cost of liquidity for everyone. I am happy to answer any questions about how the modeler works or the mission to commoditize these providers. |
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Right now, the way these liquidity funds find customers is incredibly inefficient. Some of these funds spend anywhere from $5,000 to $50,000 every month just to maintain a presence on platforms like Blind. That doesn't even count the cost of their LinkedIn ads or their in-house sales teams who spend all day reaching out to people manually.
Those massive monthly costs are eventually baked into the terms you get. I built StrikeRates so employees can see all their offers side-by-side in one place, rather than spending weeks going to each fund individually.
The goal is to prove to these funds that they can skip the expensive monthly ad spend if they move to a flat-fee model on the platform. Crucially, I am not incentivized by whether a transaction is successful or not. I don't take a cut of the deals. This allows me to stay neutral and just focus on showing you the best data, while the funds compete on their actual rates instead of their marketing budgets.