Possible Job Opportunity...

[brewer12345]

I have a potential job opportunity that I will have to decide on sooner rather than later, and I thought I would tap the accumulated experience of the posters here. I have been working as a contractor on the side for someone who has been in the exploratory stages of setting up a new business. The pay as a contractor has been quite lucrative, and the work itself has been interesting and stimulating. This is a huge difference from my day job (mediocre pay and increasingly seeming like drudgery). My client has now met up with some like-minded investors and appears to have accelerated his timeline for start up. On Friday, I received a copy of his 15 page business plan, which includes mention of me and a line item in the start-up budget for my ballpark compensation.

My client is off on a trip to Europe and the Middle East at the moment, and won't be back until Saturday. When he returns, I expect that We will be having a conversation about the possibilities of me being part of his start-up and he has begun to broach the subject via e-mail (and in his business plan).

If I were to actually get what is represented in the business plan, my comp would roughly triple (hubba hubba!), assuming target bonus, with the target bonus only accounting for a third of overall comp.. This is just a guess, but I would imagine that benefits would be less generous than my current corporate job, but the rest of the comp increase would swamp any reservations about that. As I have remarked to my wife, money is not the primary motivator for me at the moment, but this amount is enough to get me to sit up and take notice without a doubt.

I will almost certainly be on the job market anyway in the spring (gotta wait until 3/31 for certain valuable vestings), so having an attractive offer waggled in front of me is hardly a bad thing. However, I have some reservations about this particular offer that I would love some commentary on.

First, I have never had a job with a start-up before, so I feel a little uncertain about this. I am used to being a cog in the corporate machine (and a very minor cog at that). I am heartily sick with all of the BS that goes with it, but I also have no clue what kind of risks and unfamiliar cultural stuff I would be risking by going to a start up. I know that the biggest risk is that the new business could flop. I have seen the business plan and done some of the ground laying research as a contractor, so I think I have a handle on that risk (I am OK with it). What I don't have a clue about are the other potential pitfalls of a start up. Anyone care to chime in on this specifically?

Second, I live pretty far from where the main office will be and I am not open to the possibility of moving for a number of reasons. I suspect that my client would be open to the possibilty of me working from home for, say, 2 to 3 days a week, and I could make the grueling round trip the rest of the time. Any ideas on how to creatively bridge this gap? I think there are a few possible win-win outcomes to this issue, but I want to be creative and prepared when it comes time for discussions.

Third, I have no clue what variable compensation might be based on. The cash bonus would be based on pretty clearly identifiable goals, but I don't know whether equity would be on the table or how I would go about negotiating it. I'd assume that if it becomes a possibility, I could negotiate for a percentage, since a nominal amount of shares is essentially meaningless in the context of a newly formed entity. Any guidance on this?

Finally, what am I missing that might be a risk I can't even envision at this point?

I've never really been in a position to take a flier on a start up before. Now that I have a pretty firm financial base, it looks like I can well afford to take a judicious risk. If it blows up, I won't starve and it shouldn't be too tough to get a new job (was heading in that direction anyway). If it works out, I will be swimming in cash flow, which should add considerably to the FIRE stake. Frankly, the biggest possible upside is the chance to do interesting, stimulating work in an atmosphere that does not burden me with idiotic rules, procedures, mores, etc.