So, I am an analytics guy with almost 5.5 YoE under my belt. My latest transition was to Phonepe that I made this year (feeling shitty here already, given the kind of work creating almost no impact)
I saw a post on LinkedIn where the CEO of this startup recently raised some pre-seed funding (~1.5mn). Since I was following them for almost 6-7 months before this, I reached out to the founder on LinkedIn.
We first had a virtual call where we got to know each other and after that discussion, he called me over to his place where we further talked about the idea, the scope and the future while also discussing what I could bring to the table. Post that, we met again, and this time with the other co-founder who deep-dived a slight bit into the tech stack that I had worked on.
It seems that all is going well, but the founder, in the first face to face meeting told me that for the time being (for almost the next 3-4 months), he'll be able to pay me a monthly amount which is less than half of my current in hand pay, post which it'll be reviewed and adjusted accordingly. How do I negotiate this now? Also, since the team size is super small (only 5 full time folks and one customer support part timer), how do I negotiate on what equity I take (looking for a benchmark number here)?
