i like how you work
Pat feel free to tag me (not the channel 😂) if you get no where want to keep trouble shooting
I'm evaluating an equity-only advisory engagement and I'm genuinely unsure if I'm being fair to myself or unreasonable. Would love input from people who've been on either side of this. The situation:
Early-stage SaaS, ~$800 MRR, 2 paying customers
I've been working with them informally for 8 months - helped build their GTM strategy, ICP, positioning, and coached them through closing their first customers
Founders are technical, based offshore, selling to a market they're not physically in
They're opening a funding round in March
The offer:
1% equity (FAST agreement)
Up to 10 hours/month
No defined term ("until we hit $1M ARR and hire a sales leader")
Board/angels have told them 1% is the max - "standard advisor rate"
What they want from me:
Weekly deal coaching (help close pipeline)
Pricing and positioning advice as market feedback comes in
Help hiring their first salesperson
General "sales therapist" availability
My concerns:
At a conservative $2M valuation, 1% = $20k. At 10 hrs/month for 12+ months, that's $166/hr in high-risk equity. Below market for fractional work.
The real need is execution (founder doing outbound, getting referrals, attending events) - not more strategy. I've already delivered the strategy.
No term cap means I could be tied to this for 2-3 years watching slow growth.
If they fail due to execution gaps, does my "advisor" title hurt my credibility?
What I'm considering:
Counter with 6-8 hours/month max
Hard 12-month term cap
Accept the 1% but tightly define scope (deal coaching + hiring support only, no product/marketing scope creep)
My questions for you:
Is 1% reasonable for this level of involvement at this stage? Or am I rationalizing a bad deal because I have relationship equity?
For those who've done equity-only advisory: what made it worth it vs. a waste of time?
How do you protect yourself from becoming the scapegoat when a founder can't execute?
Would you walk, negotiate, or take it?
Genuinely curious what others have experienced. looking for pattern recognition from people who've seen this movie before.
Any Fractional CROs or Startup advisers in here? Would really appreciate your help pressure testing a deal. detail in thread 🧵
hey everyone bit of a sanity check / weird question. so i've been in B2B SaaS for about 18 years now. spent the last 5 as COO at a mining tech startup (took it from first customer to $6.5M ARR. lol and not crypto mining- real digging for gold type mining). these days i advise early-stage aussie founders on GTM. i've also been a CRM nerd for way too long. like, embarrassingly long. siebel back in the day (yeah i know), then salesforce, then hubspot for the last 6-7 years. i was a proper hubspot fanboy. would've defended it at dinner parties. no cap. now that i'm running my own advisory and working with early-stage startups, hubspot just feels like overkill. takes forever to set up properly. and half the stuff i used to do manually..logging calls, prepping for meetings, updating deal notes..i just don't think we need to do anymore. i keep seeing all these "AI CRMs" popping up every week. but honestly? they all feel like the same thing with chatgpt bolted on. right? so i've spent the last 3 months hacking together my own thing. anyway. i'm using it for myself and the startups i work with. but i keep wondering—is this just a me problem? am i just picky? or do other people feel the same way about their setup? if you're frustrated with your stack—hubspot bloat, notion databased, spreadsheet etc, whatever—i'd love to hear what's broken for you. not selling anything. genuinely just trying to figure out if i'm the only one. drop a comment or DM me. keen to swap war stories. cheers, sachee — https://www.linkedin.com/in/sachee
