I’m pleased to announce the launch of equity.cool: the no-bullshit startup equity calculator.
This was inspired by conversations with friends who work at startups yet didn’t understand what their stock options were worth. Startups will intentionally try to obfuscate this number and advertise a rose-tinted picture of potential valuation.
I’ve worked at three startups at three different stages (Cloudera / Series D, Scale / Series B, Airtable / Series C), and have always maintained a personal spreadsheet for calculating the value of my option package. This has helped me compare job offers from startups at different stages, and also as a way of tracking the value of my equity over time. Although I’ve found it useful, when I’ve shared it with others it’s had limited success. It’s complicated to fill out, and there’s not much explanation for how to do so.
This motivated me to write equity.cool: a simple, no-bullshit startup equity calculator. It boils the required information down to the bare minimum, and spits out a single, big number: the total value of your options package.
I hope that the calculator is useful to others out there who are considering (or are currently!) working at a startup. You can read more about the calculator and how it works in the equity.cool FAQ, and of course, go to equity.cool and try it out!