I am offered to be a CTO in a startup

[ygtrhos]

TLDR: I am offered to become a CTO in a underwater vehicle startup. I want to make a good decision, whether I accept or turn it down.

Hey everyone, I am posting this in Ideas, not sure really if that is correct.

Short background to me: I am a 34 yr old mechanical engineer. I have deep experience with FEM and know basic CAD stuff. My experience is much more about steel constructions, especially railway cars.

There is a guy who is a successful entrepreneur, a bit older than me and running a 100+ employee company already in engineering space. (specialized containers/structures, to be specific) His company is around 10 years old and he has some success under his belt, according to his own word.

His website is a bit outdated and might need a revamp, but I could believe what he said for the moment. (at least for the first interaction)

He wants to build a small submarine sort of vehicle for oceanographic and military purposes (deep sea vehicle) and the design is already half ready. It is kind of a spinoff from some research project, which he contributed to. He had a senior engineer, but he had too much focus on his personal projects and he fired him out. He used to get 8k€ a month (which is a senior engineer salary in DE/CH)

His design is half ready, he has poured around half a million euros into the project and he needs somebody to push the design further, create an MVP, improve the product etc. and create a real company. He wants to build the vehicle and rent it.

About my position, he said he can give me salary and even equity. He said, he doesnt care where or how I work, as long as things get done. I would be able to use the resources of his company (engineers and production facilities). He wants someone with a mechanical bakground, because they just do not have any knowhow about this (of which I do).

I also do not expect a stroll in the park. I will be working at least 2-3 (maybe 5-8) years 50-60 hour weeks. But hey, is it not the nature of these things?

My expectation is a normal salary and some equity (at least 20-30%) in this business. Or at least some written agreement, how I earn that equity. I can see this going to be 7-8 figures, as it also fulfills CENTS.

Things I need to know/research at this point:

- Is the guy's story really true? Does he have these facilities / engineering team? Is the design there, where he claims it to be? Maybe talk with that fired guy, ex-CTO.
- What is the business model, he has in mind? How are we going to earn money and how much? Does he have concrete business goals, or is this some sort of hobby project?
- What can I add to the project?

I hope, we have some seasoned inventors/designers on the forum, who has made such decisions.

I am not sure, if I am questioning the right things and/or if I am neglecting something out of ignorance.

What should I pay attention to in such a startup?

Any answers from experienced designers/inventors are very much appreciated.

 

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[random_username]

I am Turkish. I was lucky enough to be born into a upper mid-class family.

Not willing to change the subject here, so I will not dig more into it. Anyone with experience with engineering startups is welcome to comment.

I don't think the industry or product matters. If this was engineering question you would figure it out already, it would simply be math. Based on what you wrote, I would approach the situation like this if I was in your situation.

Most important thing IMO is that you have the same goal and have compatible values. That means deciding is this we are changing the world, we are building to last, we are building to sell, we are building to achieve a lifestyle, or some new type of startup. That means clear partnership agreements with equity and all the rest legal stuff cleared away. That is foundation on which you build everything else. If you want to have family and take your kids on saturday morning to the park, but your partner wants to wine and dine business partners until 5am that friday, that will cause friction. If you plan to work 80hours a week for a few years, all those things will come into play.

Money, financials, investing, who to sell, what to sell, costs is just math. It's all one big formula where you figure out variables and solve them. Some things will work, some won't, you will figure it out or won't, but that is all part of the process. But if you don't have the same goal and compatible values, it's all useless. You won't know does the market exist for you vehicle until you validate it, and you can always pivot into something else, if you have same values and goal. This is obviously huge topic, and it's incredibly stressful and hard work, and the point is not to trivialize it, but all that stress and hard work will just magnify any existing problems if the foundations are shaky. And you will never 100% overlap on those.

Anyway, I would make sure to know what I want from this, see if that aligns with the other person, and then start working, or not. But no offense, from reading your posts, it seems to me like you already decided against it.

 

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[ygtrhos]

Thanks all for your answers. After sleeping over it for around a week or two, I have decided to turn him down (which I just did).

I do not want to work for something that is not done primarily for profit. He did not put in so much money obviously for nothing, but he is also not building this to make an exit one day or build solid cashflow so my monetary wishes cannot be met with his project.

Nevertheless, I am one experience richer now. (and I hope you do too, through this thread)