When is it reasonable and justified to offer your employees equity in the company?
This starts with a story:
In the summer, one founder of a VC-backed startup approached me to manage his LinkedIn profile, through which he acquires clients (personal brand building).
It was a classic job interview, where the assumption is to create a conversion (you are active on someone's account, building their personal brand, as the account grows, people are noticing you, write to you, you arrange a call, and maybe close a sale)
I asked if there was a possibility of getting equity in this position, because the other positions they had advertised (whether tech, GTM, sales, some small percentage of equity) did offer even a small %...
The answer was "No, this position does not include equity."
Startups are increasingly offering equity for positions that are not related to sales.
So now I'm wondering what the equity offer depends on (position, how early you get into the business or what?) I found it a bit unfair.
There's another extreme: I find it a bit paradoxical that companies want loyalty from you even when the corporate ship is sinking, and you are asked to sink with it, even though you don't own anything on it.
Replies
I'd say that the equity discussion varies a lot from founder to founder. While harsh, I believe the decision often comes down to "how replaceable is this role?" and how much value founders see in the respective role, channel, or activity.
I've also been involved in equity discussions where I knew beforehand that other team members were offered more (sales or tech), thus, naturally, I implied the value seen in marketing was not that big.
2 things I noticed:
Founders say "LinkedIn is our main acquisition channel" but then won't offer equity for the person managing it. This is the main signal that they see it as a nice-to-have, not a must-have. If they truly valued it as core to revenue, the equity would follow.
Marketing roles often get the "prove it first, then we'll talk equity" treatment, while tech and sales get it upfront. It makes no sense to me because by the time you've proven your work is valuable, you have leverage to leave and negotiate better elsewhere.
Curious, tho, did you accept the offer without equity?
Honestly this hits close to home. I worked with a couple early-stage startups here in NYC and the equity conversation is always awkward lol.
The way I see it - if your work directly moves the needle on revenue or growth, you should at least have the conversation about equity. Doesn't matter if you're writing code or building someone's brand on LinkedIn. If you're the reason clients are walking through the door, that's not just "marketing support" , that's sales with extra steps.
The fact that they had equity listed for other roles but not yours tells you exactly how they valued that position. Which is weird because personal brand = pipeline = revenue. That math isn't hard.
To answer your actual question though , I think it depends less on the title and more on how replaceable the role is. Engineers get equity because good ones are hard to find. But a great brand builder who actually converts? That's rare too. They should've at least offered something, even if it was small.
And yeah that last point about loyalty without ownership... been there. You can't ask people to go down with the ship when they don't even have a life jacket