Am I blowing an acquihire offer?

Don’t go do business with people who are insulted by your expectation to be paid well.

It is a tell.

You have been told they don’t want to pay you.

If you do business with them, don’t be surprised when you are not paid.

Warning you is how they will justify non-payment when it happens.

Not to you, but how they will justify it to themselves.

You want to do business with people who are happy that you are making good money. Business with people who want to make you rich. Good luck.

I don’t think this sounds like an acqui-hire tbh. In that case they would pay you better than the 160k... In an acqui-hire they’d probably rather ask you to shut down your side-project...

1) Don’t look at the revenue but the profit. So take the 40k and deduct your personal time (e.g., 100 USD/hr) and the costs. Let’s say that leaves you at 20k. Mulitply with 25 for a conservative 500k valuation for your side-project. 2) What happens when they let you go? Do you get back the 100% stake? What happens if they merge it into another product and “yours isn’t making any more revenue”?

I might suggest the following: 500k for your side-gig vesting in salary/stock over 2-3 years (and guaranteed unless you do something evil). Plus your market rate salary.

As soon as you join them, revenue share doesn’t make any more sense because you don’t have control over the product any more. And should you be penalized because they screw it up?

Update 3/10:

After more dialog, the acquirer updated the offer with a $50K rev share minimum at the end of year one and $25K rev share minimum at the end of year two with the sentence "assuming you are still employed with [acquirer]". The base salary still remains $25K lower than my current base salary.

Also, my current employer just informed me that they will not be providing / continuing my pay during my paternity leave; I will just receive FMLA coverage and PFL through the state of California. Due to this, I did ask the acquirer for part-time work so we identified a project I can work on but they haven't provided any payment / salary information.

I don’t understand why you would at all consider employment anywhere near your current income that also involves giving up your side project for ??? reasons. Let alone for less.

Sounds like a terrible deal. I can’t see a scenario where this is good for you.

Selling the side project for 100k on flippa would be better than this, although not ideal either.

> saying I just wanted a job and was not being entrepreneurial.

I'd probably respond, "and you just want to hire me and take most of the revenue, so it sure sounds like a job offer to me. What is the problem?"

Yes, you might be blowing the offer. But if they don't want to pay you what you feel is right, is that so bad?

If the side project has significant costs that they'll cover, that changes things drastically. Assuming not, then the obvious question is whether you can grow revenue to 330k in two years to break even on the 50k/year loss implied by the current offer. On the face of it, that sounds really hard to do, but maybe not if your new employers have lined up a marketing team.

It's a cut-and-dried VC prop. Give up control to work on something full-time. It's many a SWE's dream to work full-time on their side hustle. Doesn't sound that way for you.

1/3 of $40k + $160k is significantly less than $185k. I would walk away.

Revenue share with acquisitions are rarely worth it IMO. First of all, a good number of acquisitions get shut down. I don't know if there are stats anywhere but it might be close to 80% from my experience. If you're even considering selling it for that cheap, there's likely some related overhead you don't want to deal with, and they won't deal with it either.

It sounds like you just want a better job, so why not negotiate more on that?

It seems risky. What if they hired you then fired you 2 months later, paid you the 35% revenue share and that's that.

Not saying it will go that way but the risk is there.

You might consider how you connected with the acquirer. Did they find you? Were you shopping your project to buyers? Are they the only game in town, considering what your project offers?

It sounds like you're not excited by the deal. If you can sustain the status quo for a while more, I'd advise you to ask for more than you really want and be ready to walk away.

Update 2/28:

Thank you all for your comments. I did receive an updated offer letter today that writes out that the minimum revenue in year one will be $50K. There is no revenue share after year one so I just asked if a revenue share can be provided after year one.

To me it’s not really an aquihire without you making significant money over your normal salary — usually paid in cash or stock over time while you are in the new role. Revenue share seems strange and maybe implies they aren’t as successful as they seem?

I see red flags. I'd continue the side project until you get other offers.

You know you can be fired at any time? They can hire you and fire you within a month, you know that right? Best of luck tho.

Walk or just save up the $40k a year to compensate

Yawn. Exploiting the code monkey n00b once again. How can it be so easy, yet so profitable?