In case you are being underpaid, Investing time in early stage startups   if you are given a head of X(product) role is a gamble. Investing time in a startup while being underpaid as just another PM is worse than gambling.

Product Manager

What is funding range they got? They are pivoting for 3rd time. Do they have some money to pivot ?

Have over $1.5M left, the founder is thankfully not in favour of huge cash burning businesses

Software Engineer

About me: 25M working in a super early stage startup for 1yr.  The startup is only 2 yrs old with seed funding. 2 pivots, but none worked. The 3rd pivot is interesting and we still don't know if it...

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

About me: 25M working in a super early stage startup for 1yr.

The startup is only 2 yrs old with seed funding. 2 pivots, but none worked. The 3rd pivot is interesting and we still don't know if it'll work 


I want to understand the life of an Early employee, how do you manage to keep hope, or when to call it quits?

Have vested esops. Also feel if I can get 1.5X cash salary if i switch

When to quit an early stage startup

When to quit an early stage startup- Grapevine

Been working with a pre series A level startup for about 3 years being my first job. Paid about 20-25lpa for a full stack role. Engineering + product team is still single digit strength as we are not pureplay tech company. 

Had a great learning because of a good manager and 0-1 kind of work we did but I am starting to feel stagnated because of following reasons

1. We don't have anything like SDE1, 2 etc because there are very few devs. 1 manager and everyone else is an SDE. The company doesn't intend to hire more for at least an year.. so i won't see any title level promotion or any role that feels senior despite being around for a while

2. Salary. Want to know if I am behind the standard pay because i belong to tier 1.5ish college. Big tech seems to pay more for 3yrs workex as usually people become sde2 by then

Is it time to quit my startup SDE role?

Welcome to Software Engineers's Private Community

I am working in a Pre Seed GenAI Startup (2020 Founded) as Head of Engineering (Team of 20 with 5-6 in Engineering, No CTO) 

It's been 3.5 years (3yrs Full Time + 6mon Internship) Previously it is in EdTech now in GenAI Space 

My CTC is 8 LPA + 0.45% ESOPs (10-12L in 25cr valuation). 
Skills: Nodejs, Nextjs, Monorepos, MongoDB, AWS, Serverless

1-2yrs ago we were thinking about scaling the tech team, etc but then that EdTech model started failing and then we went to a war time after that we pivoted currently also we are burning money revenue is there but very less (25% of the expense)

I was of the view that I want to lead teams and scale products That's why I was there in the team It can be the case tomorrow if we scale 

but Now I am confused whether I should switch my job and or stick with the startup maybe the startup grow tomorrow or a big VC fund us to scale (as I have ESOPs) or it will just be a waste of time or opportunity cost

Please guide 🙏 Anyone with a similar startup experience would really appreciate your help 🙏

Need Career Guidance in Tech (Switch or Not?)

Hello grapevines!
Need your help/opinion here.
I work for a big corp. ~6YOE. 48L.

The work culture here seems a bit off. Constant pressure to compete and snatch the work and prove oneself. Chaos is being glorified. Onsite team is unresponsive and hiding information. Asking for a KT is being judged upon(expectation is apparently to read through the code). Everyone is trying to earn brownie points by impressing the manage because no one seems to know what to work upon. Technical ability is being looked down upon in the name of domain knowledge.

I switched recently to upskill and grow, but seems like it was a wrong choice.

I’m looking for early stage startups to switch to. I know the current market situation is bad, but I’d take the risk as long as I’m getting to expose myself to good problem statements and less bullshit.

Looking to join early stage startups

which one would be better to join and how to evaluate:

 fairly old startup (~10 years) with extremely competent folks (Top IITs) VS 2 year old startup in Seed Stage with friendly team but team size <10

getting similar comp but much higher stocks in the seed stage. extremely confused because I think it’ll be similar work life balance in both. don’t know if it’s right time to take risk so early in my career (my YOE: <1)

I also think the work might be hectic in the first than the second. learning curve might be more in the first. from another standpoint, the first company is much more well recognised and more "stable"

also- for folks who have been in the job for a while, how important would it be to stay close to your home eventually? do you feel lonely in cities away from home?

sometimes I feel I should go for stability and other time I feel it’ll be fine at max the early startup will give me atleast one year experience so very confused

Need Help: Mid Stage vs Early Stage Company

Software Developer

What questions would you ask to evaluate if you should join an early stage startup in this market?

The objective is to ensure job longevity, avoid getting laid off and experience a reasonable amount of growth.

Is there anything else that we can do apart from asking questions to the company folks?

Evaluating early stage startups in this market

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 !

Share your ESOP buyback story..

Founder

I'm currently a front end dev in an early stage startup, been more than 1.5 years here, joined as a UI dev took up frontend. I've just got ESOPs and wanted to know what do people think. Not thinking of switching right now cuz recession, but does ESOP turn to money often. It'll get vested until 2027 btw.

Got ESOPs. Stay or not?

Frontend Engineer

Welcome to Office Gossip's Private Community

I recently cleared the interviews for a very well seed funded startup. I want to know how should I negotiate? HR has asked me to tell the expectations, how to benchmark it?

Also, how much ESOPs should I ask for? 

YOE-1.5

Salary Negotiation

Operation manager

Hi folks, 

I'm Kashish, the CEO of EquityList and Founder of Cloud Capital which I run as a solo GP.
A little bit about what we do: 

EquityList is a full-stack equity management platform by AngelList India. Companies across India, US and Singapore use EquityList to manage their cap table, stock options (ESOP/SAR), shareholders, and related compliances. Managing equity for 10k+ stakeholders, 250+ companies and ~$1B in stock options.

Cloud Capital has deployed $8M+ in 55+ startups such as Airmeet, Rupifi, Orange Health, DevRev, ZET (OneCode) and others. I've also angel invested in startups such as OSlash, Atlys, Chronicle, Even Healthcare and others.

Excited to do this AMA, and look forward to answering any of your questions about ESOPs, cap table management, investing, entrepreneurship, and more!

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kashisharma

Live AMA: Hey everyone, I'm Kashish, CEO of EquityList. Ask me anything!

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)?

Joining an early stage startup - Need guidance

Analyst

I recently worked at a startup and it was terrible. 

To be honest, I still worked at one of the better ones but it just sucked. 

Some of the clear downsides I see 

- Survival mode leads to chaos. You can be treated anyway and asked to leave whenever  even though you left big opportunities to be here 
- Brand loss to find next job (Big problem)
- Trying to make you feel unworthy(Doesn't bother me but I have seen people lose self confidence)
- Loss of opportunity to build real skills like building sustainable teams for the long run

I think over all working at a startup especially early teams is a losing proposition. Do it only if -
 - you know the founders/team well 
- you know the industry and market well and it is a bet you personally believe in
- you are secure enough in life that if you go back to your job, you will easily get employed 


For middle class kids, startups are the worst bets one can take.

Working at startups is terrible

Product Designer

Welcome to Business Roles's Private Community

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?)

Salary expectation at early stage startup

For anyone stepping into the world of building, just be okay with the above. It'll be true, no matter how much you fall.

2 years back, I voluntarily took a pay cut from 60L/year to 25L to chase my startup dream. Did it work out? No. Was it worth it? Debatable. Will I have regrets later in life? Not a chance.

I'm in an Indian crypto startup about 1y5m into existence and our product is in early beta right now. I've been a part since about 1y3m. I was the first hire.

The reason I'm considering a switch is because i was told we're a remote first company at the time of interviewing and after my joining they switched to in-office and all hires after me were required to relocate. They haven't made it a requirement for me yet.
I can't relocate, but now everyone except me is in-office and there's always a disconnect between me and the team. 

Decisions and discussions are done without me and I'm just told what they concluded. Sometimes even deadlines are set without informing me about the task even and i have to work/manage according to them.

I'm also technically the senior-most person after the CTO/manager (all others are either freshers or 1YOE). This has sort of restricted my growth as there's no one to review my prs or someone i can have a deep dive technical conversation with.

By how much I understand the manager and team are happy with me and my work. Also, I'm possibly the highest paid dev even as compared to the ones with the similar YOE.

I'm a frontend/fullstack engineer and the quality of work seems fine but i feel i could be doing and learning more in my field.

The culture and WLB has changed slowly for the worse as compared to when i was hired. 
Stuff like the leave policy and the whole in-office thing are the negatives.
But the manager doesn't ping me much regarding my work so that's a plus.

Switching doesn't feel ethical as the majority of the code is written by me and we're an early stage startup.
Not to mention with layoffs happening all around and a possible recession around the corner, it's not the best choice to switch i guess.

Any suggestions would be helpful!

If your company is hiring please let me know that as well.

TC - ₹18lakhs pa
YOE - 1y4m + 1y6m if you count startup contract work as exp

Should I switch?

Hi everyone,

I want to understand from the community that what are your reasons of pivoting from corporate to startups.

Please describes about the thoughts, confusion that one goes through in order to make this understand.

Pivot from Corporate to startup

Business analyst

What is a reasonable ask while negotiating with startups?

Should I ask for a match or hike of X% over my TC/annum (52lk Base + 8lk Bonus + Rs30lk RSUs), or should I negotiate only over the Cash (Base + Bonus) component?

A startup I’m negotiating with is not considering the RSUs I have and is offering a 8% hike only on the cash component, and is throwing in ESOPs (paper money) instead.

What do I do?

Need help negotiating with a startup

I've 3 yoe, currently working in a very small startup as full-stack dev. Company's revenue is declining from Q4 last year.

Every month layoffs are happening in each team. Last week, a dev was laid off from my team.

No hike till now, working here from last 1.5 years. Although, got performance bonus twice.

I want to work on a few ideas, tried to work on weekends but it led to burn out and started affecting my health, suffered from mental fatigue.

Please suggest.

Work on own startup vs switch to another startup

Welcome to Product Managers's Private Community

4yoe Engineer turned Product Manager. It's been 8 months I joined this B2B SaaS startup as an APM. Engineering team... mostly interns. Most of my time goes into execution following up with devs. Is the PR reviewed, is the bug fix deployed. No Jira, scrum, sprint planning whatsoever.

CEO runs the whole show. Only fear driven product management. I have no idea what it means to work on vision or strategy. My career has started off with a shitty foundation. Everyday I feel like quitting. What should I do? Quit right away or wait n switch to a better company?

When to quit an early stage startup

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