I will build your product in exchange for equity

Post by BrunoBernardino » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 8:36 AM UTC

emrah wrote: post #10

I would be curious to see how far you get with this approach. It's very smart to ask to see some paying customers but that means they already have something developed and you won't be the first engineer joining. Hopefully they would be willing to give you enough equity to make your efforts worthwhile (assuming you're ok taking little to no salary) Customers ready to pay is slightly more valuable than having done no c…

Thanks for the comment, Emrah!

I "slightly" disagree with requiring previous engineering work.

In my experience, from having paying customers or people willing to pay to keeping them is very different and requires an actually robust and stable technology (unlike the prototype, landing page, or MVP required for validation). I'm focusing on turning a valid idea into a profitable business, if that makes sense.

That being said, this is an experiment. I wrote a little bit more about what drove me to build it at https://news.onbrn.com/im-starting-build-for-equity if you're curious.

Thanks again, and I'll report back!

Post by BrunoBernardino » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 8:39 AM UTC

emrah wrote: post #9

BrunoBernardino wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the explanative answer! I've felt similarly to you before, until I dug deeper into the subject and realized that for white privilege to "disappear", it requires the privileged to do more than just "stop seeing color". I wish I didn't have to treat anyone differently, but I feel like I should give minorities some benefit, as they have less access to opportunities. Do you have an idea of how I could convey t…

For example, you could remove that statement from your site and discuss that during the negotiation. At that time, you don't have to explicitly ask "are you white male?" either. You can do a video meeting and you'll know who they are. Then you can adjust your equity percentage accordingly without even mentioning you are giving them a discount because they are a minority, or you want more equity because they are oppre…

Thank you for the suggestion, Emrah! From what I've been exposed to from people in minorities who are actively working towards diversifying the tech space, "paying no attention" is part of the problem of systemic racism, thus requiring an active discrimination against the privileged, in order to try and balance things out.

It's not a comfortable thing to do, because it can feel wrong, indeed.

I would be happy to consider removing that sentence if someone with more experience in this subject explained me it was hurting rather than helping diversification.

Re: I will build your product in exchange for equity

Re: I will build your product in exchange for equity