Have a third (and hopeful final?) interview next Weds with a startup; the interview is focused on “problem solving, hypothetical situations, and critical thinking discussions”.
I currently work at a large, 2,000 person company - this startup has like 10 employees so that would be a big workplace/environment transition for me. A couple questions…
Is it acceptable to ask how much cash they have? Or what their burn rate or runway is? It’s a risk going from a large, stable company to a likely volatile startup. I don’t think they offer many/any benefits, like a 401k. Can I ask for additional (annual) comp to offset lack of benefits? Can you negotiate shares in the same way you can negotiate annual salary?
This is one of those situations where I don’t know what I don’t know. Does anyone have experience making this transition, or can you offer any guidance on how to get the most out of negotiations? I’m not at that stage yet, but am optimistic that it’s around the corner.
I think all of your questions are fair game and probably expected.
I recently went through similar, and ending up moving to a startup after a career in all established companies (some larger, some smaller, but all 40+ years old). Mine is perhaps a little more established than you’re talking about…I’m around employee #100. There is a 401K (although no match). I got options, although honestly I don’t think I’ll ever have enough info to put a real value on them, and I made sure I was comfortable with the other areas of my comp even if options amount to zilch.
I still don’t know what I don’t know on equity, but here were a couple of things I read to at least ask some informed questions:
The only guidance I can offer is to be prepared for 60-70 hour work weeks and make sure your compensation reflects that. Figure you need about 2x what you think would make you happy to do that if you want to last more than a year or so.
I wasn’t clear in saying this, but I do know the annual salary band. Was able to push that convo off, but did state that I’d expect to come in at or above the top of the band provided by the CEO. The top of the band is 30% more than my current salary.
What I am uncertain about is basically everything else!
I’ve never made a transition from a large to a small company, but my most recent experience is working at a 10-15 person company as a senior executive. I would suggest the following:
Unless your prospective position is CFO/CEO, I would not ask about exactly how much cash they have, but you can definitely ask about runway. You’d have to trust them on the number of months/years that they will tell you. But also you have to realize that anything beyond 12 months (if that) is rarely guaranteed in a startup.
You can (and should) ask for compensation for the lack of benefits. It all goes towards the total compensation package anyway.
Stock options are expected in this size of company, as this is where the upside is. Ask for the strike price and the current company valuation. No point in getting overpriced options with limited upside.
I think this is the right thread for this. I’m up for promotion to Senior Manager this year, which is my firm’s last middle-manager step before you make Partner. Next week we present our business cases to a panel of partners, which will factor into the ultimate decision that gets made a couple months from now. I’ve never been very good at playing office politics or hyping myself, which is a definite disadvantage when it comes to this stuff. I spent most of today organizing my case on paper; I think on paper it’s like a 50/50 proposition, but I think I might be able to bump that up if I present it well. Not sure where I’m going with this, other than I guess hoping for some good luck and any advice that folks have.
Thanks. Yea, it’s definitely a relationship-driven business model so luck will certainly be a factor, like who is on my panel, who is advocating for the other folks angling for a promotion this year, etc
Your process may be different, but IME, the panel of people you who don’t work with is usually not really the decision maker. Or more precisely, the people you work for are going to decide whether or not you’re good enough to put up for promotion, and the panel is there to veto that promotion if you work for a bunch of morons with no judgment or you’re sleeping with the boss or something. If your org has strict quotas on promotions, maybe they are also in charge of rationing. But you should assume that the only time this committee matters is if the people you work for have said “hokie is great, we need to promote him.”
Usually, the specific question the committee is asking is something like “Is it reasonable to expect that this guy is going to build a partner-worthy practice by the time he’s up for promotion to partner?” And if they’re rationing promotions, “is this guy a flight risk if we piss him off?” So, you should be able to explain what your practice is going to be, in pretty specific detail, and who the clients are going to be. Then have a bunch of concrete things you’ve done to make that practice a reality, ideally paired with some sort of successes from those actions.
My wife is up for MD at a Big 4 tax group, and I went through the Biglaw promotion process in tax a couple years ago as well, so I’ve written/consulted on a few of these dog and pony shows. Feel free to PM me if you want to talk in more detail. And best of luck! If you’re bad at office politics, that should actually mean that this will be easy, because you got put up for promotion because you’re actually good, not because you golf with the boss.
Yup I think you nailed it. I appreciate the thoughts. My case is pretty much “here is the type of work I win/lead/do, here’s why that’s unique, here’s the market for that type of work and the opportunities that exist, here are the folks who work with me and can help maintain this practice, etc.” I’m just nervous my relationships aren’t strong enough to have someone pounding the table for me in these meetings.
Imo. You should have a direct conversation with whoever you want your advocates to be. Ask them for advice. Ask what they think your gaps/strengths are. Tell them this is important and you would like them to advocate for you based on x y z.
I was just given a peer-review form where I have to answer this question:
4.What are xxx's top 3 superpowers?
Complexity Busting
Creative Thinking
Cultural Compass
Decisiveness
Empathy
Energy
Evangelization
Experimentation
Gap Detection
Grit
Harmonizing
Ingenuity
Motivation
Negotiation
Pattern Mapping
Peacemaking
Problem Solving
Provocation
Recalibration
Systems Thinking
Vision
I did tell the other job I wasn’t interested in the second job. I would talk to my coworker and thank him for the opportunity but he got COVID and has been out for a week.
