Do not expect to make money from a start-up unless you started it. If you did not start it, you are the disposable labour. Sorry.
But, in that first wave, the founders were more likely to be the ones who built the original product. Since then, there's been a dramatic shift from the inventor-run tech company to the financier-run or salesperson-run tech company. In this second generation company, there's considerably less leverage for a non-sales or non-finance employee. I've known a couple people who've gotten rich during the second wave, but none were from the creative team.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/forbes-splash-scre...
It disables that annoying splash screen that asks you to turn off ad blocker.
You're welcome.
As an employee you get paid employee wages. If you want founder wages then you need to become a founder. Instead of joining an existing company/start-up I recommend you reach out to your network and join up with others starting a company.
Alternatively you could start your on your own. As a marketing expert you should have the skills to market your new business to others that need marketing skills. If you cannot, then your marketing skills are not that great!
Spidey sense is tingling.
Most employees don't understand that a lot of things change along with way when building a company. Most product companies start with dreams of IPO or getting sold to a large company at a massive valuation. This seldom happens for the vast majority of startups - who either go bust, sell to slightly larger players or becoming SMBs for life.
The owners of a company will make money in most of the above cases - employees won't, and rightfully so.
Bullshit. I hate this sort of rhetoric. Founders took no more risk than the first employees. The founders got funding, and if they did not they convinced some poor schlub to waste their time on the startup. That's the only difference between early startup employees and founders. Many employees at tech startups may be just as capable as the founders, but are not in the same position of power. That's the only difference. Founders take no more risk and get much more reward, if a startup succeeds, than employees, often not for any good reason other than they did it and the employee did not. I mean obviously chances of success are only ~<30% if you do your job well, but still.
If a startup fails the founders still got paid a salary, just like employees, as long as they got funding. If not then they paid out money out of their pocket, to pay a few employees a small salary which was below market. This is the only case in which founders come out worse off than if they took a job with a salary, so take more risk. The rest of it, their outcome is much better just because they did it and you did not and you believed them.
Founders get paid a salary? That hasn't always been true in my experience.
> Founders took no more risk than the first employees.
If it's actually that easy you should go be a startup founder. After all, there's no risk, right?
---> That does not count. You stayed for 10 years, learned a lot, and it seems you came in at the wrong time and were under water. It is unclear whether your CEO made "millions," but if somebody did, it was the owners, and you were not a significant owner. And you chose to live in the Bay Area, so hey, it costs to be there but you got compensated by living in a great spot. So you chose to spend the money on real estate, blah blah. Seems a little whiney right now since there are people who are REALLY struggling to live in SF and feed their families. It does not seem that you were in this category.
Company 2) "The CEO told us, 'We have an exit strategy. We will get bought by a public company and your stock options will be converted into stock in the company that buys us, or else we will go public and then your stock options will have liquidity.' That was false. We ended up merging with another company and then the combined firm was bought by a privately-owned tech company and once again I had nothing to show for my hard work. When I got laid off the second time, I had a huge monthly expense profile and I had to get a new job quickly. "
---> No, it was not FALSE. It simply did not work out the way the CEO thought it would. Now, it's not like CEOs don't want their company to be the next hot IPO or acquisition target, but hey, welcome to the real world. Things CHANGE. It is unclear whether the CEO this time made "millions," but I assume some people did: the "owners." Again, you were not an OWNER, or at least it is unclear that you had skin in this second company. Did you take a huge hair cut to work there? Did you invest your own money? But again, you kept living beyond your means. HINT HINT.
Company 3) "I had a couple of opportunities, and I took a job with a well-known serial entrepreneur who has been on many magazine covers. Once again, just a few months ago, I got laid off with three months of severance. That’s better than nothing, but my marketing programs and advice helped my ex-boss, the CEO, to make hundreds of millions of dollars. Now I sit in northern California with a $6,500/month mortgage and no job, and I’m disgusted. What am I doing wrong? How could I make three CEOs filthy rich and make nothing more than my weekly salary for myself?"
---> well, it seems you were not given significant ownership. And why would you spend $6500 mortgage if you could not afford it?
It seems your best decision was to move to San Francisco and buy a house. What is your return on that? I bet not insignificant. You deserve that. I don't see how you deserve any of the millions the owners got. Seems you got compensated well for the job you did, so it seems your bosses were square with you on each pay day right?
Or are investors now supposed to dilute themselves on the company they own when they are already paying market rate for the people who work at their companies?
I also don't see how they did. Did they work so much harder as to 'deserve' a ten to hundred fold turnout of their investment?
Yes, working that way will come with equity, but it's table scraps rather than a full meal. If you want the full meal, you need to work on something before the company is anything. If you wait until they can pay you, that's your compensation.
Another way is that the people who cannot access Forbes will access something else. Soon everybody will be going to this something else and Forbes will be another dinosaur.
Bullying the users never worked in favor of any online company.
