I recently ran into an acquaintance ("Bill") who is solely involved in a startup. The product is a software (SAAS) with b2b application for a specific industry.
Bill has a technical background and has already spent a year on different ideas and the last 3-4 months specifically developing this software. All coding is outsourced to various developers and he came up with the idea and is basically holding this project together. So far Bill has a few clients & now he wants to mass market this and wants to put a team together to scale out. Ultimately his goal is to get a CEO, sell this product and move on to the next project. He is looking for a CRO, the first addition to the Team.
My background is in Sales & Marketing for 10+ years. I expressed interest in being on the team and he asked me to give him a proposal of what he wants to do.
What is the best, fair approach? He can't pay me $$ for salary in the beginning, so not sure how to go about doing this. I have an established position with existing employer with a comp package of $120k. Bill wants some kind of Revenue sharing, but is open to a proposal.
Is it too late for a Co-Founder status? While the product and idea are set for this specific industry, I can think of many other applications using the same technology.
I want equity because there are no guarantees of retaining position in this startup once the sale is made. I won't get salary, just part of the revenues once sales are made.
I am not trying to be greedy, but trying to understand what's a "fair share" for the scenario.
Thanks in advance for reading and your input!
