When you’re running a startup it’s pretty hard to get comparable salary and equity compensation data. There are general compensation sources but the mix between equity and salaries is generally different for venture-backed companies than normal companies, small or large. So when we first got our startup running a great resource was the compensation study done every year by J Robert Scott and Ernst and Young. It focuses on private companies in technology and life sciences. They are currently looking for participants for their most recent study and I highly recommend participating. Compensation is a critical aspect of hiring an ‘A’ team and having data as an objective reference point is really helpful both in setting salary and equity levels and also communicating compensation policies to employees.
05, 11, 2009
