So back in the dotcom days there was this thing where Startup A would give Startup B some product or service "valued at" some number in exchange for Startup B giving them some product or service "valued at" and equivalent kind of amount. They did this because both A and B could report "sales" of $x revenue with a moderately straight face, even though no money changed hands and it was entirely unclear if either A or B would have paid $X for the service/product they got if they were actually exchanging real money. So for example the startup I was working at got a $120,000 data base installation in exchange for $120,000 worth of banner ads on our site.
There were two problems with that, first the investors were somewhat misled (seeing only the 'sales' numbers and not the actual dollars in the bank number) and two the IRS went after folks who were saying "millions in revenues" for taxes on those revenues which, since they were in trade goods rather than dollars, the companies didn't actually have money to pay the taxes.
Its this latter bit that worries me about this idea. If you give equity for work you have to provide a value for it. You have to give the person a 1099 form (if its over $600) and they may end up owing income tax on an illiquid asset.
Interesting idea but think there will be a huge adverse selection problem here. Any startup giving out equity for tasks but which as no cash to pay may not be all that valuable to have equity in.
And I wonder if the same can be said of the job seekers who use this. Really great people get paid for their work and perhaps get equity as well.
Part of me hopes I'm wrong about this as it is an interesting idea.
We agree with you, however, this is a way to turn an idea into a minimum viable product without spending money. This may not be the best way to build a full product, but our philosophy is the more hypotheses you can test without spending cash the better off you are. Thoughts?
this. I recently spent 4 months coding nights for a startup and got told it's going to be "hours for equity" - where they were giving themselves a high valuation and me effectively a "market rate converted to shares". I quickly ran off.
So far my opinion is that you need to increase your rate at 10x if it's for equity on the table, and the startup is bootstrapping. You're essentially a part-time cofounder in some ways because the product/business model can rapidly change depending on who you're working with, and you have essentially zero guarantee as to how you will know about the success of the business later on.
I also saw someone at a startup weekend earlier this year do the same idea, although he came off as a shady businessperson in the process, and had a very hard time explaining how it all worked.
Overall, I'm tired of business folks making this idea. Unless someone else outside the business does an official valuation, this doesn't really make sense. Also, business folks tend to think "hey, i'll rent a coder as 'hours for equity' then build just enough to pitch to investors, then find 'real people' while i have tons of leverage". Airbnb may be the rare exception where this worked out well, but that guy was paid in cash.
What kind of job seeker is this looking to attract?
Equity's great if that equity turns out to be worth something, but it doesn't pay today's bills. If I've got money saved up and I'm looking to take on a labor of passion, chances are really good it's going to be with one or two other people I already know, respect, and trust. If I don't have money saved up then I need cash now, not equity with an uncertain payday.
I get why entrepreneurs would love this, but what's the use case for job seekers? What am I missing?
The problem with most recruiting sites is the lack of (competent) candidates.
And this is because highly competent candidates are never deliberately looking for a job. They get recruited to a pretty good job before they have even started thinking of jobs from college, and then get recruited to other companies by an old friend. It's extremely rare that they are ever considering themselves to be a "job seeker" at all.
These people don't bother reading recruitment-only sites in their free time. And they certainly don't want to create a job-seeking profile, and get in trouble with their boss who thinks they may be leaving.
But what they are very interested in is reading about their field of speciality. When I was sourcing candidates, the only online places where I found qualified engineers were the StackOverflow and 37signals job boards. These two are successful because they built the community and content that competent candidates want to visit daily first, and added a job board second. I have no expertise in mechanical engineering, but GrabCad seems to be doing it well in that area.
So my theory for running a successful recruiting site is:
1. Choose a single profession, skill, or field.
2. Create seed content yourself to attract initial experts in that field.
3. Add community features to let these initial experts contribute more content.
4. When you have become a well-known site for most experts in the field, add job boards.
Interesting idea but I would have a huge aversion to giving anyone equity who I haven't had some experience working with in the past or I don't see as having a long term role in my company.
Would anything change your mind about that? If you wanted to test a hypothesis for a risky business idea and didn't want to sink cash into it, would it be worth it?
Would you prefer a method to pay cash for labor instead?
If your company's "most precious resource" is capital and not equity, that's indicating that you are expecting to fail. Equity is already far more risky than a salary in companies that think they'll succeed. I hope you are successful, but I think you might need a pivot or two on this idea.
What did you have in mind? We hear from the community that some combination of equity and cash would be helpful, but I'm curious what other ideas you had?
The website look and feel is good.But I would like to see if you have talked to few startups interested to work with you. Put their logo at the bottom of your sites mentioning that these are the top startups hiring job seekers.
That way you can attract more user(job seekers) to your site.
The video on the home page is surprisingly polished and professionally produced but the script is an obvious piss-take. The home page on the other side is a quick & dirty job - looks like it's been thrown together in a couple of hours using some free website template.
I vote for an end-of-year project by media students made for fun.
I think you should state clearly before the "Register" step / button that it's only available in the US at the moment. I looked around, I liked the idea, I wanted to see more so I signed up and ended up having to chose a location in the States (which I can't, obviously, being in Europe).
Very interesting! A friend and I chatted about building something like this due to the fact that the JOBS act makes it much more feasible legally. I was thinking about crowd-building entire companies, though. I think your execution is much more practical.
So... I've tried to sign up as a 'job seeker' 3 times in the last hour and it simply doesn't work. The sidebar targeting arrow just jumps down to the 'startups' tab after clicking 'register'.
You need to add error info on your "Add a Resume" form. Just wanted to check things out, but couldn't get past that page (presumably because I omitted a field for personal reasons).
ChuckMcM|13 years ago
There were two problems with that, first the investors were somewhat misled (seeing only the 'sales' numbers and not the actual dollars in the bank number) and two the IRS went after folks who were saying "millions in revenues" for taxes on those revenues which, since they were in trade goods rather than dollars, the companies didn't actually have money to pay the taxes.
Its this latter bit that worries me about this idea. If you give equity for work you have to provide a value for it. You have to give the person a 1099 form (if its over $600) and they may end up owing income tax on an illiquid asset.
asanwal|13 years ago
And I wonder if the same can be said of the job seekers who use this. Really great people get paid for their work and perhaps get equity as well.
Part of me hopes I'm wrong about this as it is an interesting idea.
hoursforequity|13 years ago
seltzered_|13 years ago
So far my opinion is that you need to increase your rate at 10x if it's for equity on the table, and the startup is bootstrapping. You're essentially a part-time cofounder in some ways because the product/business model can rapidly change depending on who you're working with, and you have essentially zero guarantee as to how you will know about the success of the business later on.
I also saw someone at a startup weekend earlier this year do the same idea, although he came off as a shady businessperson in the process, and had a very hard time explaining how it all worked.
Overall, I'm tired of business folks making this idea. Unless someone else outside the business does an official valuation, this doesn't really make sense. Also, business folks tend to think "hey, i'll rent a coder as 'hours for equity' then build just enough to pitch to investors, then find 'real people' while i have tons of leverage". Airbnb may be the rare exception where this worked out well, but that guy was paid in cash.
LnxPrgr3|13 years ago
Equity's great if that equity turns out to be worth something, but it doesn't pay today's bills. If I've got money saved up and I'm looking to take on a labor of passion, chances are really good it's going to be with one or two other people I already know, respect, and trust. If I don't have money saved up then I need cash now, not equity with an uncertain payday.
I get why entrepreneurs would love this, but what's the use case for job seekers? What am I missing?
ProblemFactory|13 years ago
And this is because highly competent candidates are never deliberately looking for a job. They get recruited to a pretty good job before they have even started thinking of jobs from college, and then get recruited to other companies by an old friend. It's extremely rare that they are ever considering themselves to be a "job seeker" at all.
These people don't bother reading recruitment-only sites in their free time. And they certainly don't want to create a job-seeking profile, and get in trouble with their boss who thinks they may be leaving.
But what they are very interested in is reading about their field of speciality. When I was sourcing candidates, the only online places where I found qualified engineers were the StackOverflow and 37signals job boards. These two are successful because they built the community and content that competent candidates want to visit daily first, and added a job board second. I have no expertise in mechanical engineering, but GrabCad seems to be doing it well in that area.
So my theory for running a successful recruiting site is:
1. Choose a single profession, skill, or field. 2. Create seed content yourself to attract initial experts in that field. 3. Add community features to let these initial experts contribute more content. 4. When you have become a well-known site for most experts in the field, add job boards.
sage_joch|13 years ago
symbiotic|13 years ago
hoursforequity|13 years ago
Would you prefer a method to pay cash for labor instead?
unknown|13 years ago
[deleted]
pi18n|13 years ago
hoursforequity|13 years ago
subrat_rout|13 years ago
hoursforequity|13 years ago
MehdiEG|13 years ago
I vote for an end-of-year project by media students made for fun.
hoursforequity|13 years ago
vhf|13 years ago
I think you should state clearly before the "Register" step / button that it's only available in the US at the moment. I looked around, I liked the idea, I wanted to see more so I signed up and ended up having to chose a location in the States (which I can't, obviously, being in Europe).
seanlinehan|13 years ago
Best of luck! The site looks pretty good!
hoursforequity|13 years ago
mgkimsal|13 years ago
hoursforequity|13 years ago
heimidal|13 years ago
hoursforequity|13 years ago
hoursforequity|13 years ago
jacques_chester|13 years ago
Oh well. There's room for lots of businesses. Let one hundred flowers bloom.
hoursforequity|13 years ago