Ask HN: Early startup valuation for acquihire?

> I'm mostly trying to determine a dollar amount assuming I also get 10-20% of their company and a small salary.

Given those two statements (and without knowing any details), my instinct would be that you'd effectively be joining their company as a sort of late-arriving co-founder. On that basis, my advice would be as follows:

1. Decide whether you want to become a co-founder of the company. They key thing is whether you want to join that team and work with those individuals.

2. Don't expect to receive a large dollar amount. It's not an exit - it's an acquihire. You want to find out how much the co-founders are getting paid and use that as a benchmark for your salary.

3. Do make sure that you do full due diligence - you need to see the cap table and understand what terms all the existing shareholder (including the founders - e.g. vesting schedules) and investors (e.g. any preferential terms) have. I'd be wary if they were reluctant to share any of that information. It's not unreasonable for them to ask that you sign an NDA. Get a lawyer to review any document they want you to sign and talk you through what it means. In fact, it's not a bad idea to get your own NDA drafted up and put it forward to them.

4. Be clear on what your role will be going forward. You don't want any hand-waving or "We'll sort that out later."

5. Ensure that everyone's expectations (including both yours and the other company's investors') are clear and aligned. Don't make any assumptions. Lay everything out in painstakingly explicitness.

6. Make sure that you're protected in case things don't work out. Basically, think about what could go wrong. Will your equity be subject to vesting? What happens if they fire you before the vesting period is complete?

If you want to go into specifics, I'd be happy to talk further on a confidential basis. My contact details are in my profile.

"We've bootstrapped the company so far, but we don't think we will ship a MVP without taking at least a seed round" wouldn't draw any protests of misuse, in my experience.

You are correct that most bootstrapped companies that have launched end up supporting themselves; that's survivor bias in action.

But that's not your situation. It seems like you do have traction but you don't have a team.

If your traction is >> theirs, you might consider hiring them.

If their traction is >> yours, they won't give you much.

If you are at all worried about whether they are negotiating in good faith, then before you go any further, file one or more patents asap. This provides you with at least 2 things:

1) increases what you have to put on the table

2) if talks dissolve and you find they were in it to get as much info from you as possible (e.g. to use in their product), you have some legal options. Whether you need this recourse AND whether its even feasible, is left for a later time.

Business is war, expect no less. And in this case, the more they give you (cash or equity), the more they lose.