dumbcliche69

Go-To-Market Lead (1st Sales hire)

What is a reasonable stake (equity) in the company for a first sales hire?

For context, I'm a founding sales hire at a Series A company with 14M funding. I report directly to the Founder/CEO. I'm not a sales leader, I'm an IC and we will likely be hiring for a Head of Sales above me; some potential for me to be a team lead / player coach but I honestly don't like management and prefer to be an IC with outsized voice, while contributing to process, hiring, etc.

As part of my comp, I was granted equity worth 0.2% of the company. Does this seem high? low? about right?

(I / we are exceeding expectations, I'm about 4 months in, and I'm thinking about angling for more options if/when we hit a growth revenue target this quarter)

💰 Compensation

12 comments

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someoneinsales

Tycoon

Director of Sales

Might be low if you are the only sales person and you are responsible for the company hitting rev targets. IMO, First sales hires should be between .6%-1.2%. That is what I typically see when I have joined Series A companies in the past.

dumbcliche69

Good Citizen

Go-To-Market Lead (1st Sales hire)

Thanks Mooney!

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

What is the intent behind the question? You are going to find it very difficult to get a larger equity grant now that you are hired, especially as an IC.

That said, I'd say you got taken for a ride. As the first sales hire, who went on to lead the sales org, I was granted a 5% option stake in the company. They were pre-series A, so cap and pool were both lower.

dumbcliche69

Good Citizen

Go-To-Market Lead (1st Sales hire)

Thanks for the reply / datapoint, PBC! Wish I'd been on here during negotiation process.

Intent -- definitely looking to benchmark a bit so I can more confidently ask for more shares when the timing is optimal. I'm happy with the comp otherwise, and generally the company doesn't cheap out on talent (great benefits, 401K match, i can move whereever and keep my current package), so I'm reasonably confident I won't be rejected out of hand, especially if I make it a performance based incentive: "if we do X re: our annual goal, I want Y more stock".

I'll also likely be a natural team lead when we hire a few more reps, which will be another opportunity to renegotiate.

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

Good deal--and good luck!

BmajoR

Arsonist

Account Executive

About tree-fiddy.

CaneWolf

Politicker

Call me what you want, just sign the damn contract

.2% sounds about right for a non-leader first sales hire (I've done a ton of research on this previously when exploring roles). Usually a VP Sales type hire will get somewhere in that 1%-2% range from everything I've read.

What @poweredbycaffeine got is fucking nuts.

dumbcliche69

Good Citizen

Go-To-Market Lead (1st Sales hire)

Thanks CaneWolf! helpful. i'm hoping I can get up closer to 0.5 by the time i'm done here, without having to actually like, scale and build a sales org lol. burned out on managing full time.

Yeah i think my VP Sales at the last Series A company I worked at was getting 1.5%. @poweredbycaffeineyeah wtf you have "getting a coalition of shareholders together to push for a leveraged buyout" amounts of equity lol.

LanceDollarz

Opinionated

CEO

You mentioned you are not a sales leader so that sounds about right. Leadership positions I've seen are typically 1 to 1.5%

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

Are you still there?

Jam

Personal Narrative

Growth strategist

Good deal- but if your input is significant walk up and negotiates with the management of the company for good OTE to complement the equity.

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dumbcliche69

What is a reasonable stake (equity) in the company for a first sales hire?

12 comments

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