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Ask HN: Has anyone sold their employee stock on the secondary market?

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Re: Ask HN: Has anyone sold their employee stock on the secondary market?

#21

Post by s1artibartfast »

eganist wrote: post #3
s1artibartfast wrote: post #2

Not sure why this is Marked dead. Seems like a perfect question for this forum. I too would like to know the answer.

first submission by a new account, guessing from a throwaway behind tor so that the question can't be tied back to a specific person or company. That's why it's useful for a handful of people to have showdead enabled: so that good questions or comments lost to antispam/antitroll filters can be fished out from the abyss. --- As for questions like "Were you able to sell w/o board approval," I feel like this depends on…

Thanks! Makes sense

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone sold their employee stock on the secondary market?

#22

Post by ed_balls »

>Were you able to sell?

yes, the company allowed people to sell up to 25% of vested shares if you were employed for more than 24 months

>What platform did you use?

Carta

> Were you able to sell w/o board approval? If so, were you able to use private forward contracts to complete a deal?

No

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone sold their employee stock on the secondary market?

#23

Post by teej »

boulos wrote: post #20
blaaaaa99 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bought uber, airbnb and reddit in 2018 on equidate/forgeglobal. Structured as contracts for future stock from current employees that get transferred to you after the ipo (and usually 6 month lockup) are complete. I got 100% of the uber stock (about 1x return) about 99.8% of the airbnb (about 2.5x return) and depending on if/when reddit ipos (was looking good for 10x a few months back but unlikely now) it will be inte…

> it will be interesting to see how much of the stock i get if it has gone up massively since initial purchase. You mean from the employees backing out somehow?

The employee got cash already. Not sure they can simply “back out” without major consequences.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone sold their employee stock on the secondary market?

#25

Post by klohto »

IncRnd wrote: post #12
s1artibartfast wrote: post #2

Not sure why this is Marked dead. Seems like a perfect question for this forum. I too would like to know the answer.

This forum is run by venture capitalists, which might have something to do with the question posed on this page.

Stop reading Breslow’s twitter man

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone sold their employee stock on the secondary market?

#27

Post by kippinitreal »

Yes, with SharesPost, equityzen and Forge. Company had a pretty standard policy so approval was straightforward but took a few months and required some legal opinions (costing $,$$$). In my case the deal was for the shares directly. Biggest lesson was really just that the fees really added up (near 10% if under $100k) and it’s a shame more companies don’t do more to broker these deals on employees behalf to get the best price and cut out the middlemen (another employer did this and it was great).

DM if I can help with more info, experience with each company was essentially the same and you should just reach out to all of them to see who has inbound buy requests at the highest price. Worth noting that there is more room for negotiation on price than you might expect.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone sold their employee stock on the secondary market?

#28

Post by doktorhladnjak »

ceejayoz wrote: post #10
kome wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so basically... there is not a market, and it's a fake stock

No? If you can find a buyer for a certain amount, you can sell for that amount. The company can just opt to be the buyer.

Check your stock agreement. I worked somewhere it didn't just grant first right of refusal, but the company had to _approve any sale_. In practice, they approved almost no sales, so this was a ban on selling shares before IPO.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone sold their employee stock on the secondary market?

#29

Post by smoyer »

dang wrote: post #19
IncRnd wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This forum is run by venture capitalists, which might have something to do with the question posed on this page.

We don't moderate HN that way. I know that contradicts the default cynical view, but people should replace that view with the following alternative cynical view, which is more accurate: (1) HN's only value to YC is the community; (2) the community only comes here to the extent that it finds HN interesting; (3) therefore, to optimize HN's value, we have to optimize it for being interesting. Moderating for parochial in…

Hi dang ... I know this is meta but if you put this comment in a page linked at the bottom of HN, we can point confused users this text without wasting as much of your time. Of course, those that truly believe in conspiracy theories will either assume you're a disinformation source or in-the-dark regarding your bosses true motives. You can't really fight that.

As an aside, thanks ... to a large degree I enjoy this community because of the effort to keep the discussion civil (sometimes embracing debate over argument) and that I can learn at least a little about fields outside my own. It's much appreciated.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone sold their employee stock on the secondary market?

#30

Post by wikibob »

kippinitreal wrote: post #27

Yes, with SharesPost, equityzen and Forge. Company had a pretty standard policy so approval was straightforward but took a few months and required some legal opinions (costing $,$$$). In my case the deal was for the shares directly. Biggest lesson was really just that the fees really added up (near 10% if under $100k) and it’s a shame more companies don’t do more to broker these deals on employees behalf to get the b…

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