I just left my pre-seed startup that was running out of cash (we made $100,000 in revenue this year, and sunk $1m in costs). I was making $40,000 as a developer (plus 20k stock options at $1/share per year) and they refused to pay me any more money. I have 17,000 vested stock options, total number of shares at the time of my contract was 4million. I’m a bit confused about share dilution and if it’s worth it for me to buy some of my stock options… thanks in adv!

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Posting as :
works at
You are currently posting as works at

No

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Note, you have to pay taxes on the spread between the strike price and exercise price as well.

I have seen many burned by this.

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Might be some good info somewhere on this website, linking to a random page because I’ve got people coming over in 10 mins lol.
You’ll likely need more info than what is in your post to make an informed decision depending on your risk tolerance. Feel free to reply if you have more q’s ✌️

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Good input here from others, I agree

What is your post-termination exercise period. You need to figure out first how much time you have left to decide.

Assuming you have 3 months left to decide, consider what the shares are worth compared to your strike price; and consider the prospects of your lottery ticket paying off. Also, keep in mind that you don’t have to exercise all your vested options. You can go all Solomonic and exercise half or whatever you want to spend.

If you send me the company name, I’d be happy to share my $0.02.

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Can you sit on the shares and not exercise them until an exit?
I wouldn’t spend a dime in your own money, or pay taxes, for shares that may very likely be worthless

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Does this company have any sales or paying customers ?

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What's your strike price?

$1/share

so if I'm understanding what you have here right, in 1 year earnings where -$900k?
I guess it is pretty normal to lose money over the first couple of years, but if it's beyond that and still losing money. That's not a good sign. Add to that, running out of money. Why are they running out of money? single owner or partners who don't want to bring in outside equity investors? Can't raise money because everyone that would thinks they are too high a risk or they have a product that there is no market for?
without really knowing the company, this is just what comes to mind based on what you stated.
as for the shares, is this a publicly traded company or are these private shares tied to some equity in the company as a whole? If they are private, their likely somewhat illiquid and may be difficult or near impossible to sell. Though if the company isn't profitable, and doesn't look like it will be in the near future, I'd dump the shares if there was an opportunity.

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