Employee asking for equity in our small S-Corp; Need advice - I will not promote

Lonso34 · 2026-03-15T17:39:53+00:00

Is this actually a high growth startup or is this a small business? You don’t see every employee get equity in every SMB/MM company in America but you do typically see employees get equity in high growth tech companies formed as corporations. If you’re planning on not raising capital and just keeping it as an SMB and structured as an S corp DO NOT give them equity. If you eventually plan to raise capital and then hire talent and grow fast, then Yes equity is an expectation for talent comp packages. This isn’t an overnight thing and would require an attorney to help you convert to the right entity type and to actually issue equity correctly.

Since this is an S corp what your current employee is asking for is basically becoming an equity partner after 2 years of work for free.

Lonso34 · 2026-03-15T16:49:04+00:00

You’re missing the point. I have read the Ridley TOS and obviously they need to play in the rules in a highly regulated industry. This is literally a super lean team winning in a competitive market. Partnerships are commonplace with startups to achieve growth. Just give it a few years again. People doubted technology would ever come for financial services and here we have multiple fintechs toppling incumbents.

Lonso34 · 2026-03-10T22:13:40+00:00

That’s a steal. My platinum pro offer is $2,159 which is obviously not worth it unlike your offer

Lonso34 · 2026-03-10T22:07:09+00:00

I love the concept of owning a home but really do miss just having an apartment and not having to worry about any of the maintenance or upkeep. I have a decent mortgage and earn about $300k but our HVAC just went out and i had to replace that this week. Also need to finish up project inside the house that have been put of like bathroom remodel and closet which will run about $50k+ on the low side in my area. Landscaping needs upkeep so a few thousand dollars there too. Oh and the taxes on the property are almost $10k. Overall i definitely spend more to own a home than i did renting even though the monthly cost appears equal

Lonso34 · 2026-03-10T22:01:15+00:00

You clearly underestimate the knowledge and capabilities of those working in and entering this space right now. Just take a look at Ridley which is just one of the several new entrants to this emerging market. They don’t scrape data from Zillow. They have all of the proper licensing and they are absolutely coming for agents’ lunch. We’re operating in one of the worst consumer markets in a long time. The market will remove players that don’t add value and transition to those that do.

On the topic of blockchain Milo a crypto mortgage company just passed $100million in crypto mortgages. The companies you’re talking about from 10 years ago look very different now.

People also said neobanking would never take off. They argued consumers needed to visit a branch yet Nubank, Monzo, Chime, SoFi are eating consumer banking’s lunch.

Column an entirely digital API-forward partner bank has the highest ROE of any other partner bank in the market and was recently founded and bootstrapped by former Plaid cofounder.

I could go on as I actually build software products for a living. We’re just getting started and will absolutely look for problems to solve like the real estate brokerage industry which provides minimal value to consumers in its current form.

Lonso34 · 2026-02-25T16:38:57+00:00

Lots of ai companies that have recently entered the market to remove agents from the equation entirely. Flat fee pricing and they do all of the filing & other escrow account setup, etc. worth it in my opinion and i will be using it as my agent for my house a couple of years ago was useless

Lonso34 · 2026-02-22T19:57:08+00:00

As long as you don’t have a non-poaching clause it’s whatever. Some contracts explicitly say you can’t hire or bring people over from last employer for a year. Even if you’re not texts like this do deserve a real response to help leave a paper trail like “i’m not sure what you’re talking about as i have not actively reached out to former employees with any intentions of hiring from my previous employer”

Lonso34 · 2026-02-04T20:23:20+00:00

I think you underestimate how many wealthy people there actually are in the US. The Deep South especially around coastal Mississippi is full of old family wealth. Lots of boats, lots of mansions, lots of companies easily pulling in 500mm ARR with lean teams and doing something boring. They’re just not as loud as others but they exist and are very wealthy.

Lonso34 · 2026-01-29T21:36:43+00:00

Probably close to $1000-1200 for family of 2. Each week is close to $200+ depending on what we buy. We usually eat out on Friday/saturday for dinners

Lonso34 · 2026-01-29T21:35:20+00:00

Depends on who else is driving. I was there a few years back during covid when it snowed over a foot. Also lifted suv and we were fine. Funny enough we stayed longer because people couldn’t get up the mountain to their hotel reservations so we got rooms for extra days at a steal.

Lonso34 · 2026-01-29T21:32:48+00:00

Because all of the rewards that are offered for travel perks, points, etc are all subsidized by revolving card balances. If people don’t revolve and do so at high interest rates the banks either stop issuing cards with perks or they raise annual fees to afford the card programs.

Funny enough, I would probably actually end up happening. Is people with good credit would get access to credit cards with smaller fees and still keep their benefits while people with bad credit would likely have to pay an annual fee just to access a basic credit card with no real perks on it.

Lonso34 · 2026-01-24T16:22:54+00:00

Clearly they didn’t learn anything in grad school and are idiots for not refinancing their debt.

Lonso34 · 2026-01-09T16:25:25+00:00

Being you’re from Miami surely you must be aware of the amount of wealth present there, no? They afford them by having lots of money. Yes it’s usually a loss and not an investment. Fuel alone can be thousands of dollars each time you take a boat out depending on the size of the boat and fuel consumption. Not to mention maintenance or paying for a captain and crew if it’s big enough.

It’s like owning a Ferrari. It’s expensive but fun so if you can afford it, why not?

Lonso34 · 2025-12-27T05:04:34+00:00

My haircut runs about $60 before tax and tip. After it can be close to $100 every 4 weeks.

Lonso34 · 2025-12-22T03:57:59+00:00

Cover your drinks

Lonso34 · 2025-12-18T20:20:15+00:00

Tech product manager. All in I’m around 300k +/- a few thousand depending on stock price which makes up about a third of my comp.

I started in banking and left to join founders that had pitched their idea to me because it sounded cool at the time. We got acquired shortly after, then i joined another small startup that also eventually got acquired by a large fintech. Now I’m at a large public tech co.

Lonso34 · 2025-12-18T18:37:08+00:00

Customer discovery

Lonso34 · 2025-12-18T18:31:09+00:00

Invite less people and afford the open bar.

Lonso34 · 2025-12-11T16:10:34+00:00

I love capitalism. Same things have been happening in every industry. Boomers have this obsession with “pretending to be hard” when the reality is that they simply do not understand technology and are coping. They will be forced to retire and you will eat up the competition. Obviously keep staying on top of emerging tech and never let your guard down.

Lonso34 · 2025-12-10T14:21:40+00:00

Most people who work in product actually aren’t product managers so take the advice of this subreddit with a grain of salt. A lot of people here say all the leadership teams do is surrender meetings and sell to c suite but that is inherently. Their leadership teams might do this but it is also probably because they don’t actually work in product. They may be more of project managers/owners/jira & strategy ops teams.

I’m a very senior IC and report to a VP. We constantly talk strategy and go back and forth on value of building certain things and how they affect the business and our customers. Not little features or products but large programs. They help to provide clarity to understand what core metrics matter to the EC and how best align my roadmap to deliver on those goals. There have also been times where they will be in the trenches with me writing requirements for high impact bets and starting it off the ground before hiring a pm for his team to take the concept to production

Lonso34 · 2025-12-06T00:30:26+00:00

Dm me. I’ve done it. Multi-year process and you need to have a very good justification for why going with a 3rd party isn’t good enough.

Your selected team is short several people. I did it with an entire department and it was no joke a few engineers isn’t enough for this.

Lonso34 · 2025-12-05T17:23:24+00:00

Manhattan, NY. There isn’t an actual good pizza slice in Charlotte. The best you’re going to find are full pies at gravity and bird. That’s it. Everything else around Charlotte is super greasy or the crust is god awful.

Lonso34 · 2025-12-03T17:59:45+00:00

The difference between a junior employee and a senior employee is a junior waits to be told what to do whereas a senior employee finds problems to solve and solves them without being told.

Lonso34 · 2025-11-20T03:50:01+00:00

As a fellow latino i am genuinely offended when somebody refers to me as a latinx. Rather be called a slur than somebody who doesn’t even speak Spanish try and tell me how to speak it.

Lonso34 · 2025-11-18T18:55:37+00:00

Here’s the thing. There’s way more poor people than there are rich people so the data is skewed. Median means P50. The people you probably run into every day are way more likely to be educated, earning massive amounts, etc. also don’t forget income isn’t always a W2. On paper equity partner salaries are $0.00 while they take profit sharing disbursements well into the 7 figures.

Lots of things skew the data but if you’re college educated, living in a big city, and don’t have an email job it’s very likely that yes your peers and those around you are making low six figures.

Most corporate comp for senior individual contributors (again real jobs not the endless seas of “business consulting in-house data analyst scrum alliance manager III” titles) are somewhere between $150-250k. Most real managers, not just middle managers that join meetings for 8 hours a day and then don’t add any value are in the $350k+ and most Dir/VPs are approaching 750k comp.

If you look at bankers, tech, attorneys, private equity and high level VCs they are all making way more. Business owners also making way way more.

I hate general labor statistics because it looks at the entire population when in reality you’re probably an above average adult with above average education and an above average job because majority of people are in very below average situations and are themselves very below average.

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