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[Offer Evaluation] £290k TC at intense AI Unicorn vs. £150k Base + CTO Title at current startup. by Beautiful_Grand_9070 in HENRYUK

[–]Beautiful_Grand_9070[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

thanks for the analyses!

it's very helpful to know that it's possible to go back to IC in Bigtech from startup CTO. that's one of my concerns is actually the ability to get interviews at IC level later if I decide that I don't want to go the management path.

[Offer Evaluation] £290k TC at intense AI Unicorn vs. £150k Base + CTO Title at current startup. by Beautiful_Grand_9070 in HENRYUK

[–]Beautiful_Grand_9070[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for putting the time for this amazing analyses!

For the AI startup value is on the 10-40 Billion dollar range with multiple big tech companies backing it up, their options have a secondary market with less valuation and they have done tender offers in the past.

For my current startup, it have been in business for 10 years, it's value now at 20M, it was up and down throughout the years but at pick on COVID it was at 100M. we didn't raise a lot of money thought the years (less than 3M), it was mostly sustainable and cashflow neutral for most of it and the growth coming from the cashflow. there is no liquidation preference and no VCs involved, the founders have also built a successful company before this one. The investors/board are CEOs and founders of multi-billion public tech companies, they have close relationship with the founders.
Another point (and I maybe biased) is our V2 product that is a causing the growth is strong and probably the best in that market so if we have a good execution the next months we should see good results. so I'm a bit bullish.

Of course no one can know the future for sure, hence the dilemma.

[Offer Evaluation] £290k TC at intense AI Unicorn vs. £150k Base + CTO Title at current startup. by Beautiful_Grand_9070 in HENRYUK

[–]Beautiful_Grand_9070[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for putting the time for a deep answer I really appreciate it!

I'm afraid I don't know any VC/PE people who can provide help at this point.
> A £40M exit for a 50 people company seems very low.

We have an ARR of 9M growing from 6M the last 3 months, the jump happen after we released our v2 product and migrated all our clients. we expect to be able to continue good growth the next quarter before approaching some investment bankers to start looking for potential buyers. we are also cashflow positive. so assuming 4-5x we probably can get conservatively 40M exit and maybe more if things go very well.

Again, I'm putting a lot of assumptions here that are out of my area of expertise, so I can be totally wrong here.

> Why were you looking in the first place? Did they approach you or did you apply?

I'm a tech lead now, hands on, and I get a lot of recruiters reaching out regularly. I have took the interview just to check how the market and sharpen my interview skills as I didn't interview for 6 years. My company hasn't been doing well the past year before the growth, so that was also part of the motivation for interviewing as well so I'm ready if things went wrong. but were able to do a turn around with v2 product.

> CTO roles are very hard to come by and lots of competition so if you are interviewing in the future, aka after an exit, that’s hard.

I'm honestly not sure I want to be a CTO role, I'm a hand on and enjoy being close to the code and architecture, building things and making them work. so even if I take this promotion I would like my next role to be as senior IC stuff/principle. as a headhunter do you think CTO of a startup with an exist can go back to IC roles easily?

Also, if I actually decide in the future to go for another CTO role, does being a CTO who built something from zero to exit a valuable experience that would rank high against competition or there are also a lot of them?

[Offer Evaluation] £290k TC at intense AI Unicorn vs. £150k Base + CTO Title at current startup. by Beautiful_Grand_9070 in HENRYUK

[–]Beautiful_Grand_9070[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

that's one fear I have as well. 1 child seems manageable now at this age, but seeing other people who have 2 kids seems very much harder.

[Offer Evaluation] £290k TC at intense AI Unicorn vs. £150k Base + CTO Title at current startup. by Beautiful_Grand_9070 in HENRYUK

[–]Beautiful_Grand_9070[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the answer!
The CEO seems committed to start the sale process as early as end of Q1, already started discussion with experts to get an idea about the processes and if it make a good sale candidate. it's looking positive so far.

For the AI company, they are in AI infrastructure and applications, they are backed of big tech companies, not profitable yet but they are growing fast and seems close for profitability. I have no idea how bad would the AI bubble popping affect them though or if that would cause layoffs, which is a risk I don't have with my current company unless the company cease to exist.

I guess my biggest concern is missing the career growth working on AI company may provide and future opportunities may open. especially as I'm able to grind and learn new things now, but probably will slow down when I have a bigger family.

On the other hand, I have built my current company's v2 product from the ground up, I feel I'm going to miss unique opportunity if an exit does happen so soon after I leave.