CadenceCombat profile picture
CadenceCombat profile picture

CadenceCombat

Account Executive

Tycoon
Arsonist
Politicker
+12

Are startup roles still compelling in this market?

Obviously there’s always going to be exceptions but generally speaking, has the collective upside of joining a startup taken a dip with SVB and the economic belt-tightening in tech?


To be more specific, do you feel your options / shares are even still worth anything? Is leadership still telling you they’ll IPO in 2 years? Are stock options as important to you as they were a year ago when looking at a compensation package?

📉 Equity
📠 Startup
👀 job search
14

22 comments

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butwhy
Politicker
8
Solutions Engineer
To me, late stage (anyone claiming to be IPOing in the next two years) is the most dangerous place you can be right now. A whole bunch of unicorns have NOT re-valued in the last two years and they are gonna run out of runway in July-September. I truly believe it is about to get UGLY.

Early stage maybe - depends on the round funding and the leadership, but if they can hang on and build for two years and a scrappy team, that's the better startup bet.

Do your research for sure.
braintank
Politicker
3
Enterprise Account Executive
Very well said!
Donutpanda
Executive
1
Enterprise Account Executive
I totally agree late stage is sketch I got laid off at a series f company. Tbh companies getting good funding now are solid. More scrutiny and less totally fake valuations. Your gonna take risk anywhere
oldcloser
Arsonist
5
💀
Great question. I’m an advocate of long game, but the tech startup environment just isn’t conducive. My equity is worthless and given PMF it’ll stay that way.
Sunbunny31
Arsonist
4
Sr Sales Executive 🐰
Equity isn't real until it is. And if you're risk-averse, it's not the place to be. However, for those who like living on the edge and can afford to take a chance, it can be exhilarating. It's going to be a very personal decision, based on where you are in your life and in your career.
RandyLahey
Politicker
3
Account Executive
Sadly, I was at a recently IPO'd company a few years back that dangled a nice chunk of shares. At least they were real.

But they were notorious underpayers, and slow to raise.

Lots of my former colleagues ended up getting burned, as most were unaware about vesting schedules, blackouts, etc.

The stock then tanked 75%. Years of being underpaid for what?

Take the higher base.
Sunbunny31
Arsonist
3
Sr Sales Executive 🐰
I'm having flashbacks to tech reps getting absolutely burned back in the day.

Only had one company pan out, and that was by acquisition. Got equity back in the form of a check.

I do love ESPPs when available, but that's for the already public companies.
RandyLahey
Politicker
3
Account Executive
Exactly.

Especially because in some cases, you can get the ESPPs at source, pre-tax. Combine that with a discount and have some easy, juicy profits.
Sunbunny31
Arsonist
3
Sr Sales Executive 🐰
Yeah, you still pay when sold, but a little patience can net a sweet profit.
CuriousFox
WR Officer
1
🦊
I agree with the higher base. That sucks dude.
RandyLahey
Politicker
4
Account Executive
There's too much risk at the moment. The VC money has dried at the Seed/A stages. Runways are compressed.

Unless the offer is too compelling and you have some real belief behind the offering, I'd stay away.

RSUs, Options, vague equity offerings are just a silly way for companies to escape paying you the salary you deserve.
Pachacuti
Politicker
3
They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy
Start ups always have been and always will be a high risk/high reward situation. Regardless of what the economy is like. And it can be a crapshoot on whether or not the one you join works out. So it really just depends on your financial situation and your tolerance for risk.
CadenceCombat
Tycoon
2
Account Executive
We can all agree on that.

However, my question is: Has the collective weight shifted in terms of risk / reward with where we are at right now?

Furthermore, do startups need to tweak their offers accordingly or is there enough desperation in the job market right now that they don’t need to?
ChumpChange
Politicker
1
Channel Manager
People manager here at a Series C start-up. The job market is awful right now with so many tech workers that have been laid off in the past couple of months. Any open rec where I work has 800+ applications within 3 days. Every tech/SaaS company right now is being risk-averse until inflation has stabilized.

If you're in the final interview stage and compensation is being offered... be VERY CAREFUL about how you phrase your counter offers. I've personally seen two candidates have their offers pulled because of how they phrased their make-or-breaks. The drop from Candidate A to Candidate B is not drastic enough to warrant Candidate A a 25% increase from what the company has budgeted.
braintank
Politicker
3
Enterprise Account Executive
Great question!

I think a lot depends on the company and when they raised.

Take Wiz for example ( https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/27/cloud-security-startup-wiz-now-valued-at-10b-raises-300m/)

If you started there post Series B you're kind of fucked. They chased a vanity metric (fastest to $10B valuation) at the expense of rank and file staff.

Let's say you hope your Wiz options grow in value by 6x over the next few years. Using Okta as a public comp, Wiz would have to grow to be as big as Okta in order to 6x their valuation. That's probably a 8-10 year journey, assuming near-perfect execution (it took Okta 12 years). And that's assuming that public multiples stay astronomically high for the next 8-10 years (very unlikely). When they IPO they'll need the stars to align to not have it viewed as a disappointment.

There are still good opportunities at startups that boot strapped and run lean.

Overall, when evaluating offers options rank pretty low for me. It's good to have them but I factor them low in my decision making criteria.
Space_Ghost20
Executive
2
Account Executive
I've only worked for two startups that had equity options. One I left voluntarily for a promotion to AE, and the other laid me off. Both were before the options kicked in.

For me, the equity isn't real until I see actual dollars attached. The appeal to startups to me is in helping to build something new and interesting that doesn't have a lot of territories and accounts carved out, you can just get in and sell.

From my perspective part of the danger with startups (in addition to the company going under or laying people off) is that it's kind of hard to break out of once you're in. A lot of folks end up stuck working for a slew of startups unable to transition into a more established company.
Nairobi
Politicker
2
AE
I'm probably going to stay in the startup world for the next 5-6 years. I've never been interested in the equity-- like sure it's nice but I know that the chances of it actually turn into cash are small. I'm just joining cause I like the thrill of it and I do get paid well with a nice work-life balance.
Maximas
Tycoon
1
Senior Sales Executive
Economic bud✋🙃
When it comes to startups it's a bet, either you get unlucky to get laid off at very early stages or super lucky to get a fast leadership role when it expanded, barely to see something in between.
Believe that most of who're joining startups are realizing that fact and may be just ready to let go these benefits temporarily for a hopefully faster promotion and additional future benefits when the biz starts to do well.
Kosta_Konfucius
Politicker
1
ERP Sales
Everyone is going layoffs, feel like we talk about Salesforce so just because you work for a big company doesnt mean you are safe
Gyro25
Notorious Answer
1
Account Executive
I have RSUs that are about as valuable as the NFT pyramid scheme
losangelessadness
Opinionated
1
Inbound AE / SDR Manager
I work at a seed startup working towards Series A (I started pre seed funding). Our sales numbers are all low due to not enough features / sales tools / team size but I have job security because I know the product well and they like / need me. I figure it could go great and if not I'll eventually get another sales job but at least I don't worry about huge corp layoffs.
1
Account Executive
It is always tough determining if your shares are worth anything. 60% of all Seed companies fail to get to Series A. That is why VCs take so many bets vs. betting on one company. So don't beat yourself up on equity.

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