“Dave Evans is from the future.” That’s what I told my co-workers at GSD&M when GSD&M was still GSD&M and not Idea City. In the mid nineties Dave was already deeply engaged in the emergence of web based communities, as fractured and realtively disabled as they were then. His book Social Media Marketing – An Hour a Day is a history lesson and an action plan rolled into one for those forging into the digitally connected territories. This post isn’t about social media though.
Dave and The Butler Bros are in an alliance of companies. As such we are faced with opportunities that we must agree upon collectively. Dave messaged our entire group recently with his thoughts on working for equity. Once again Dave’s past experiences will change that future that I live in. He gave me permission to share his thoughts here. Perhaps you will find them to be merely common sense but I found them to be very well reasoned and most importantly, full of self esteem. I think this post will be of great value to the many start up agencies I socialize with and the many start up businesses connecting with them. Would love your comments.
My POV on “equity” projects is this: While I may do this same work in my “day job” I view these projects as “volunteer/night job/things I’d like to see happen but realize they may not…” endeavors. So, I have to limit the number of these I am working on. (That number is generally between zero and one.)
As for my involvement–and I’d except the same for all of us–it is constrained by the fact that this is an equity deal. I can balance (but don’t ask my family for a second opinion on this…) a controlled commitment with other (aka ‘paid’) work. (Otherwise, I should not be part of this.)
That said, (insert start up name here) and his team need to recognize that we are all doing some variation of this same balancing act: He is NOT getting a team that is 100% focused on this project, precisely because we have other obligations. That is his choice: His alternative is go and pitch this, seek funding, issue an RFP, and pay for a fully retained team.
As for the equity…it needs to be substantial: We need to be (appropriately for the the role we are playing) equal partners in this with (insert start up name here) and his team (minus the ‘founding’ allocations, of course…). We need to see business plan, and our involvement must be noted in it before agreeing to this.
In summary, we aren’t creating the expectation that we will work for free, and hope something nice happens. There is risk, and with that there must be an offsetting reward. We are offering instead to JOIN his team as equity partners, with a committed eye on creating shared success.
Tags: business, equity, GSD&M, marketing, social media
Interesting topic. I’d be interested if any readers have feedback on how any equity only arrangements have worked for them, on both sides of this coin.
I appreciate the reminder of choice–on both sides of the table.