How much equity should I ask for as a cofounder?

Investors claim 20-30\% of startup shares, while founders should have over 60\% in total. You may also leave some available pool (5\%), but don’t forget to allocate 10\% to employees. Based on the most outstanding skills of co-founders, define your roles clearly within the company and assign job titles.

Should you offer contractors equity in Your Startup?

The graph below shows the relative percentage of equity holdings before, during, and after the investment. If you hire contractors in the early stages of your startup, you might be tempted to offer them equity in exchange for their services. While this sounds good because it can save you cash, it can actually be problematic.

How much employee equity should you offer your startup’s developers?

Leo Polovets of Susa Ventures suggests offering between 1\% and 2\% for a lead developer, based on data from Silicon Valley early-stage startups. Fred Wilson of Union Square ventures has posted an entire free, online class where he goes into great detail about structuring employee equity, which is definitely worth watching. What about advisors?

Should equity compensation for early employees be equivalent to market rate?

In other words, the loss of compensation for the early employee as compared to market rate should be viewed as equivalent to the equity for that same dollar amount from an investor. Logically, that’s correct, but I personally would put a risk premium on equity compensation.

What is an equity offer?

Startups and private companies sometimes entice recruits with an offer of equity compensation to offset lower cash compensation (base and bonus). The equity represents ownership — having a stake in the company you’re helping to grow and succeed. However, understanding and negotiating the equity offer can be difficult and time consuming.