“Dear Zoe, I have been in process with several early-stage companies about new roles, but things keep breaking down at the job offer stage. I’ve been surprised by how low the base salaries are and I don’t want to take an unfair reduction given my experience and what I bring. What can I do to ensure I land a great opportunity and overcome these compensation challenges?”
There are certainly some headwinds making compensation conversations more difficult at the moment for founders and candidates. The market is competitive and company-driven right now, with more candidates to select from. There was significant salary and title inflation over the past few years, and candidate expectations remain high. Yet this is not always being matched by companies, especially in the tougher macroeconomic environment.
Align salary expectations upfront
A misalignment around salary expectations should never be an unresolvable surprise — it wastes time on both sides. This doesn’t mean ruling out conversations that don’t immediately match a number, but it’s vital to set context early. Be upfront about your seniority, previous earnings and the type of scope you’re looking for.
Ask questions in the first or second conversation to help you understand the expected salary range on offer, and be forthcoming about your expected range in return, with an indication of how much flexibility you might have. At this stage, you’re looking to discover more about the mission, ambition and opportunity, so give yourself enough space to assess whether compensation trade offs make sense before entering hard negotiations.
Sharpen your target
It sounds like you’re engaging in role discussions with companies that may just be too early in their company building journey to afford someone of your experience level. Early-stage startups will typically be cash-constrained until they have found true product-market fit.
Stage relevance is really important. Focus your search where your experience and salary expectations best align with company funding and growth. For instance, if you’re open to joining something a bit later, consider companies that have recently raised early growth funding, where you can be paid a better base salary and still operate in a ‘builder’ environment.
If you’re after a senior leadership position, understand that you’re more likely to get paid a market-rate salary once a company has raised substantial funding and is seeing promising revenue growth.
Consider the location of the company too. Jobs in premium cities like London, Paris or Munich, for example, will often pay more than regional centres, and normally always more than remote-first companies.
If you’re really set on joining the action at an early-stage startup, consider advisory or fractional roles. Very often these relationships can turn into full-time operational positions when the company is at a stage to hire at your level.
Look at the whole picture
You may be underestimating the equity component of your offers — which is somewhat symptomatic of the times and understandable given the tighter funding and exit landscape. But this is just a temporary phase rather than a permanent shift, and there are plenty of reasons to place value on long-term equity incentives.
Equity remains a core lever to recruit top talent at the early stages of company building. It’s the primary mechanism for aligning people to the long-term mission and the company’s future success. At the offer stage, you’ll need some key information to understand the total compensation package and make a good risk-adjusted decision — such as the company’s last post-money valuation, vesting schedules and strike price. Ideally, the company will provide this proactively along with some modelled future exit scenarios to help you project how valuable the offered stock options might be one day. But if not, you can build your own projections by equipping yourself with the right questions.
There is often some room for negotiation. It’s increasingly common for companies to offer a sliding scale where candidates can choose between higher salary/lower equity, or vice versa, based on their cash needs and risk appetite. Though ultimately, early-stage founders want to hire people who have real skin-in-the-game and are motivated by the long-term financial upside, which means full cash packages are rare. Take time to honestly assess your motivations — whether it’s about impact, working with smart people or solving hard problems — and determine if your priorities will allow you to flex on base salary.
Gather salary benchmarks
Finally, ground yourself in reality by gathering recent compensation benchmarks. Leverage your private peer networks and sites like Levels.fyi. Lean on your recruiting contacts who may have access to tools like Pave or Carta. Remember that compensation philosophies vary, so even with the benchmarks, not all companies will offer salaries at the same percentile.
Nobody likes to feel undervalued as they consider stepping into a new role, but staying flexible in this market is key. Your time has an opportunity cost, just as it does for companies. By aligning on expectations early, targeting more relevant opportunities, evaluating the total compensation holistically and benchmarking yourself with data, you’ll be in a stronger position to land the right role.
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