My understanding is that this was not an achievable option in the solution set e.g. 2 years ago, but 2 years ago the solution set also didn't include "Waltz into a six figure job as a fresh graduate", "Bill mid five figures a month contracting for a funded startup", or "Get this deal offered by somebody on the other side of the street if I don't play ball with you because your startup will fill that round regardless and the only question is how much you extract from us to make it happen."
I'm totally agnostic on whether this is bubblicious or this is just the market finding a more accurate approximation of the true value of the time of anyone capable of launching a product people like, by the way.
1) Have an offering which is extraordinarily difficult to hire for at the moment which...
2) ... accelerates growth of the startup in ...
3) ... a demonstrable manner as evidenced by...
4) ... past successes which are identifiably associated with your name in...
5) ... the minds of people who have authority to cut checks.
That's really the most helpful answer I can give you. "Learn SEO, A/B testing, AdWords, viral acquisition, etc etc." is also as true as the last 47 times I said it but less complete as an answer. There exist few reliable ways to hire for these at the moment and they are, at least potentially, all worth $$$$$$. However, putting out your shingle doesn't get you $x0,000 on your first week.
Does that rule out almost all consumer market startups, because they aren't making anything and don't seem terribly interested in doing so ("We're focusing on growth")?
I don't know what to tell you about how to value labor in companies that don't generate revenue. They all have some metric by which they justify spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a quarter on salaries; presumably, the same metric applies to contract work?
Not "crazy". Crazy is multiple liquidation preferences, participating preferred, founders and early employees in 8-figure exits being unable to buy a house on what they actually get, and the fact that founders have to pay the VC's own legal fees. That shit is fucking nuts. Founders cashing out for less than the market value of the work they produced to get to a seed round? Not crazy.
That's crazy if it happens because VCs conceal the terms of their deal, or offer exploding deals that don't leave time for due diligence.
On the other hand, it's not crazy if the board knowingly accept those terms. If they do, it's because there weren't better terms to be had somewhere else. All of these terms have a dollar value. The more onerous the terms, the lower the implied valuation of the company.
