| > So my question is, how do you solve this? I think I can offer some insight on that, because I'm Figure 53's employee #2 (after Chris). I live near San Francisco, where with some effort I could quite possibly find a job that paid 20% more than I'm making with Figure 53 if I wanted to. And my first child will be born in the next 3 weeks! Oh, I also bought a house in June, for extra measure. :-) Would a 20% raise be enough to draw me away from Figure 53 to work for one of the many startups around here? Hell no. A 200% raise wouldn't be enough. Some of the many reasons why: - I'm passionate about our products, but even more so about the art that gets made with them. I'm a musician who learned to code in order to make the tools that I wanted to use, and now I get paid to make those tools, and help other people use them. Whether it's a high school play or the Olympics, it's really freaking cool to see what your customers create with your work. - Family is important to me, and working from home (and not on a 9-5) means that I'll be able to spend time with my daughter even after I come back from paternity leave. Chris is of a similar sensibility, so I never have to do any convincing on that score. - I don't have to worry about whether the company's going to be around next month, because I know our money is being managed conservatively. We're in it for the long haul, which our customers also appreciate. In short, Chris solves the issue of employee retention by making Figure 53 compete in many more important arenas than salary, from the more banal things like job stability to the more intangible things that go into quality of life. That's not to say that we aren't being compensated appropriately for what we do -- Chris has made it clear he's all ears if any of us ever feels we're being short-changed. But otherwise, if I went to him and said, "Hey, Schmooblr LLC is offering me 20% more, pay up or I walk", that would be a sure sign that I was not a great fit for the company in the first place. |