Share your ESOP buyback story..
Fast learning and fast paced growth aside, after 15 years of MNC experience I joined a startup to get some ESOPs.. and hopefully a good buyback .. I have worked in 2 startups now.Both of these were already Unicorns when I joined . While I love the culture and dynamic pace of a startup i feel my chances of getting a payout are slim... My personal learning is to get a good reward you have to be in top 10 employees for sure ... otherwise it's not worth it .. There is no point joining a Unicorn in middle management...or second in command in any function... Happy to hear your thoughts !
Haven’t got an esop buy back. But am in a similar position (svp at soonicorn).
Joining a unicorn makes sense as liquidity chances are higher but you are very unlikely to get rich unless one joins as a cxo (even then unlikely to make 50 cr+, unless the startup goes decacorn).
Being first 10 employees is basically joining at seed stage. Chances of liquidity are sub 2% here. It’s a risk/reward game. But then why not become a founder instead. Same risk, higher reward
I joined at a series a stage - so can’t become FIRE rich but got a good grant (0.5-1%) for a comfortable few years if one gets liquidity. Which is extremely unlikely to happen for next 2-3 years.
Also - it’s way easier with unicorn creds for future roles/being a founder.
I joined the startup in 2021 gold rush - they paid a significant amount of cash along with the esops. In today’s environment, even the cto of a seed startup won’t get more than 50l for the first year.
So my pov now is - only 4 good options for me -
1) work with a listed us tech firm - was in Uber earlier. 90% of the cases Uber employees make more than unicorn employees
2) become a founder/or early stage employee / employee only if cash is significant for my level (atleast 1.5 cr, ideally 2 cr+)
3) join a unicorn with good chances of ipo
4) join a Vc/growth equity firm for the chill money
Cobra
Stealth
a year ago
Great perspective
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Qwerty2398
Stealth
10 months ago
My first start up job, gave me a decent ESOP. We were into financial industry related development. Two years of long hard work, and then one day the company went bankrupt and failed.
My esop was not worth the paper in which it was printed. learned two important lesson that day -
1. Always hard cash , before ESOP.
2. The bond paper in which documents are printed cannot be used to eat bajji as they do not soak the oil well.
Snake_babu
Stealth
10 months ago
In my case, it wasnt a buyback but the firm has started paying dividends. dividend yield is somewhere around 8%. For context, I bought the shares around 2019.
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