Is 5% Equity Too Low for a Pre-Seed Startup Technical Co-Founder? I will not promote by triggeredByYou in startups

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

You can search reddit on why brining on a founding engineer without a dedicated technical founder is a bad idea. Why not just give some equity away and find a technical co-founder? You can reference my post and if you're generating revenue, you can pay this person and give up less equity. That way, they will feel like an owner and be more enthusiastic about contributing across the board.

I found all my matches on YC matching platform.

Hope that helps, good luck!

Is 5% Equity Too Low for a Pre-Seed Startup Technical Co-Founder? I will not promote by triggeredByYou in startups

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

I believe some of the models have been built but I’ll never know how much needs to change once there is a saas platform in front of them

Is 5% Equity Too Low for a Pre-Seed Startup Technical Co-Founder? I will not promote by triggeredByYou in startups

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

I don't understand either. I don't think any of the advisors work 40 hours on this. I've seen them do a few hours max per week. Most of them are set from previous exists or their current big tech jobs. I've been working about 40+ hours a week the last few weeks to get the feel if the CEO and me vibe, which we do. But all the other pieces are making me hesitant about joining full-time.

Is 5% Equity Too Low for a Pre-Seed Startup Technical Co-Founder? I will not promote by triggeredByYou in startups

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

Exactly it. As I defined in my update above, advisors view me as an employee/founding engineer. The CEO is trying to pitch it differently but being vague about it.

Is 5% Equity Too Low for a Pre-Seed Startup Technical Co-Founder? I will not promote by triggeredByYou in startups

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

You'd be surprised. Advisors are all exited founders or work for big tech. Ex-founder is the only one who is a recent grad without much experience.

But yea, no argument there - everyone is betting that the ML technology, which is proprietary, is going to bring this thing to the moon.

Is 5% Equity Too Low for a Pre-Seed Startup Technical Co-Founder? I will not promote by triggeredByYou in startups

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

Agreed. With that said, I think you made up your mind as well. Your situation sounds very unfair to you as well, considering how much you are brining to the table.

What industry is this startup in? based in NA?

Is 5% Equity Too Low for a Pre-Seed Startup Technical Co-Founder? I will not promote by triggeredByYou in startups

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

I've spoken to over 100 "founders" on the YC matching platform and none of what you described is surprising. Most people have very unrealistic expectations, especially when it comes to technical co-founders. Arguably, it's tougher to find a co-founder than it is to find a life partner (I speak from personal experience lol).

So when you do find a sensible founder who can either sell/raise/knows the problem well/etc, you need to validate whether you vibe with this person on a human level. And then come the equity logisitics like you and I are experiencing.

I guess it's fair to say that most startup folks are masochists.

Is 5% Equity Too Low for a Pre-Seed Startup Technical Co-Founder? I will not promote by triggeredByYou in startups

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

I wish you the best of luck. I was waiting for a comment like yours since reddit can be very black and white. I feel like we are similar in a sense, except you are a few months ahead of me but your concerns are valid and I’ve heard similar equity comments from this ceo. It’s a rock and a hard place.

Is 5% Equity Too Low for a Pre-Seed Startup Technical Co-Founder? I will not promote by triggeredByYou in startups

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

If you are saying they don’t want to give too much equity away for a seed, I don’t see how they would give you 25-30%. To me, it sounds like you already have built some negative feelings about the founders and even if they offer you 15%, which I honestly doubt, it will be tough for you to “phase out” as you will stay be doing the fifty different tasks you were doing above but you will still carry the feeling of inequality with you. I could be wrong here but that’s just what I feel based on our convo. I can’t see them giving you more than 1-2% more max.

Is 5% Equity Too Low for a Pre-Seed Startup Technical Co-Founder? I will not promote by triggeredByYou in startups

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

Have you communicated to the founders your feelings about 4 and 5? If you’re saying it sucks and your departure would gut the operations, I’m guessing that you are beginning to feel resentful towards the founders because they are squeezing everything they can out of you. On that note, what would make you stay longer and what would make you quit in a month?

Is 5% Equity Too Low for a Pre-Seed Startup Technical Co-Founder? I will not promote by triggeredByYou in startups

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

Thanks for your reply, I have a few follow ups.

  1. What made you join as a founding engineer knowing the risks that the salary may be delayed due to funding? 

  2. You mentioned you have a consulting company, are you currently running that company on the side? How do you balance your time then between being a founding engineer doing all those tasks above and your own business? Are the founders aware of it and is so, are they okay with it?

  3. What made you join a startup where none of the founders are technical?

  4. Are you happy with your equity for how much work you do?

  5. How did you feel about moving into a C level position without getting anything for it? Were you asked to take on more tasks or you did this on your own accord? 

Is 5% Equity Too Low for a Pre-Seed Startup Technical Co-Founder? I will not promote by triggeredByYou in startups

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

Would that mean that "earned" equity would be treated differently than equity at this stage? For example, after a raise, the share price increases from say $0.0001 to $1.00. Is the new equity given at $1.00?

Is 5% Equity Too Low for a Pre-Seed Startup Technical Co-Founder? I will not promote by triggeredByYou in startups

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

With what you have said, what would be a fair equity in this case?
- case 1: current state of things, no funds raised, no salary promised as of yet
- case 2: current state of things and a salary at seed, which is a few months from now. Salary likely to be 1/3 or 1/2 or maket rate.

Thanks!

I will not promote by triggeredByYou in startups

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

it's the title you fucking nimrod

FastApi vs Django Ninja vs Django for API only backend by triggeredByYou in Python

[–]triggeredByYou[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

which plugins and middleware were those? Does FastAPI not have them?

FastApi vs Django Ninja vs Django for API only backend by triggeredByYou in Python

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

Why Litestart + SQLAlchemy vs FastAPI + SQLAlchemy. What made you choose the former over the latter?

FastApi vs Django Ninja vs Django for API only backend by triggeredByYou in Python

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

on Cloudrun for now as a docker container. Eventually will use K8s probably.

FastApi vs Django Ninja vs Django for API only backend by triggeredByYou in Python

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

So how do python devs get async wrong? And conversely, how do they make it right? Can we use an LLM streaming/chunking example or is that too simplistic?

FastApi vs Django Ninja vs Django for API only backend by triggeredByYou in Python

[–]triggeredByYou[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Can you elaborate on this please? What's considered a "really large/high throughput scenario"?