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Comment by Swizec | Hacker News Reader

I love working with/for startups.

But I have a very simple rule: Either I'm a cofounder, or I'm a freelancer[1]. If I really really like your idea, I will lower my rate.

When you do the calculations, by the time there is an exit event even starting with 30% equity is barely worth it considering the exit size of most startups. For 1% equity ... few things under a google-sized exit will make you well off, most wont even come up to getting a market-rate salary.

[1] I actually specialize in freelancing for startups and small businesses.

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This. When founders bemoan the "talent crisis", they are really complaining about the shortage of people who are excellent coders/marketeers/whatever but have naively optimistic expectations of what their equity will be worth. It normally only takes one startup job for people to fall out of that Venn intersection.

There's a third option if you can code and want to be involved in/profit from the startup scene: contract for big day rates somewhere like NYC or London, and angel invest your spare cash and tech mentor a basket of N startups. You will probably make better picks (and give saner advice) than most VCs.

You can only angel invest (right now) if you're an accredited investor which is a non-trivial barrier for a freelancing engineer to overcome.

For US or Canadian companies, you are correct. Happily in Europe we treat adults like, well, adults, and it's pretty common for non-1% people to angel invest in early stage companies. Foreign investors are welcome too - and I don't think even the SEC can stop you investing your money overseas.

This strikes me as a mature approach to the issue. It's so common to be enchanted by the idea of working for a startup - especially if you're young - that you'll accept any type of deal, even if it sometimes means making so little money that you can't make ends meet.

"Either I'm a cofounder, or I'm a freelancer" - +1 . I've started following this recently, it really keeps things simple and weeds off any chances of misbalance between 'your perception about your role' and 'their perception of your role' in the company.

How do you find your clients? I'd like to do pretty much the same, but I have a hard time finding clients.

I've been lurking on reddit/forhire and building up my network, but there hasn't been any big hits yet.

Do you go to entrepreneur meetups in your area?

Not yet. I've been focusing on dev focused meetups for now, but will be expanding soon.

>"When you do the calculations, by the time there is an exit event even starting with 30% equity is barely worth it considering the exit size of most startups."

The article motivated me to go ahead and release my crude fuck you money calculator:

http://fumoney.kludgecode.com/default.aspx

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