ESOPs Terms and conditions?

Hello guys, I would want to know what is the benefit of getting ESOPs in an early stage startup? The startup has a great team and working on a promising product. I have been offered a package with somewhat lower fixed component and somewhat higher ESOPs. Need insightful pointers here. TIA :)

I’m considering joining as a founding engineer at an early stage startup who is just about to sign a $4M seed round. They offered to match my current base and a $20,000 in ESOPs. When joining at such early stage companies, how should I think of ESOPs so that I can better negotiate. I’m banking on this idea going big and I want to get as much ESOPs as possible to maximise my returns in the future.

Hello All, I interviewed with a startup recently and some of their policies around esops was something I encountered for the first time in my career, so wanted the expert advice of the community on next steps. Surprise one: ESOPs will be allocated post probation period of 3 months and vesting starts from there and not the date of joining, I was surprised on this but upon discussion with the company POC I was given a reason of the legal fees involved, which sounds fair but the vesting schedule is it employee favourable? Surprise two: They shared an offer letter with only the fixed component and said ESOPs will be evaluated post completion of probation period basis performance. Upon further discussing in this I was informed that this is a standard format their VC(sequoia, a16z and elevation) have approved. Is this true because I asked around few of my friends and all of them said esops are an integral part of the startup compensation and all of my and their offer letters historically had esops mentioned along with their value. Wrt to point 2 an I asking too much or some practice has changed in the industary which I’m unaware about. Also esop value post probation evaluation, is it employee friendly as the employee is in non negotiable position, isn’t it ?

I have 6 years experience. My current base/fixed is 60 LPA. (I also got a 5 lakh bonus and 5 lakh of my ESOPs vested this year making my total vested about 30 lakh. So the total comp is 70). I'm being offered a senior engineer position in an early stage startup (as part of the founding engineer team). They haven't given an offer yet. Being early stage, the emphasis will most likely be on ESOPs. How do I evaluate this and set my expectations? (If I were to switch to a mature company, I believe the hikes usually are between 15-20%? How does this work for early stage startups?)

I have come across early stage startups where the founders try to lowball you on the compensation by painting a very rosy picture of the future and a verbal commitment for offering generous ESOPs. Such commitments are almost never honored :) Have you experienced something similar?

Hi everyone, I joined a startup back in May which started in May itself. I wrote the first line of code and it has been the backend work since then and have hired a few interns along the way. I took some pay cut to join this startup and i didn't receive any share/ESOPs as well in my offer letter. but whenever i talk to my friends who have worked or are working in these types of companies, ask me to ask for the ESOPs/equity from my founder. I did talk about equity/ESOPs before accepting my offer letter but that time, they said, you will be issued ESOPs later on when we raise some funding. We will make some ESOPs plan when we raise funding. I know that our company has only raised friends and family round of amount near to 1cr. Now I need advice on.. should i bring up this conversation again with the company's founder ? And how much percentage of equity should I be asking..? given that I am giving my 101% daily and leading the backend team.. although i have industry experience of only 3 years but have good academic achievements and has completed graduation in computer science in tier-1 college.

How would you explain ESOPs in layman's term ? (consider ESOPs for gameskraft)