创业公司奖金猛于毒

    有风投支持的初创公司通常都有不可思议的野心。一支创业团队聚在一起，目的是在现有资源不足的条件下，努力创造出不大可能实现的东西和超出合理预期的东西。一旦获得资金支持，初创公司的每个人都会得到一份合理的薪水。但如果把不可能变成现实，真正的回报则是股权。

    我曾不可避免地与我的公司讨论过奖金问题。一种观点认为，初创公司现金紧张，应该限制固定工资开支。但如果公司实现了目标，可以发放不固定的报酬，以奖励员工的出色工作。

    这种逻辑听起来很有说服力，但实际上却是错误的。奖金对于初创公司而言无异于毒药。

    除了销售代表的佣金外，我认为，初创公司在最初几年里，不应该向员工或管理层发放奖金——至少在公司充分了解了自身财务表现之前不应该这么做。问题在于，奖金与初创公司大无畏的雄心壮志不相匹配，对公司和员工而言也都不公平。

    初创公司并非都能如愿实现他们的目标。让我们用比较简单的营收指标来算一笔账。假设一家初创公司之前一年营收300万美元，希望在来年翻四番，达到1,200万美元。结果，这家公司第二年销售额仅达到900万美元。团队奖金的标准是达到或超出目标。团队工作非常努力，而且，为了发展公司业务，他们一定做了大量工作。然而，它终究还是没有达成目标。不幸的是，在这一年里，团队成员们一度认定，他们肯定能得到奖金。毕竟，团队将公司业务增加了三倍，而且也为此付出了辛苦的工作。但公司明确规定，只有达到或超出目标才能获得奖金。

    这种情况下，公司该怎么办？如果不发放奖金，会让努力工作的团队心寒；如果发放了奖金，那就意味着公司的目标是软目标，只要公司业绩在发展，团队工作努力，就应该发放奖金。再增加一个条件，假如公司营收达到1,200万美元，才能首次实现正向现金流，进而才能有现金支付奖金；而如果公司营收为900万美元，则意味着公司亏损了100万美元，需要额外融资。为了弥补损失和可能发放的奖金，公司将不得不面临所有权被进一步稀释的风险。不难想象，当员工离开公司的时候，会说公司的目标太疯狂了——“我们把业务增加了三倍，却连一分钱奖金都得不到。”

    Venture-backed startups are incredibly ambitious. A startup team comes together to try to create something highly improbable and well beyond what can reasonably be expected given the scarce resources at hand. Once financed, everyone at the startup should have a reasonable salary, but the real compensation for achieving the improbable is equity.

    Inevitably, I get into a discussion with my companies about bonus packages. The idea being that startups are cash constrained and should limit the guaranteed salary costs, but that if the company is achieving goals, it should reward its employees with non-guaranteed compensation for a job well done.

    The logic is compelling, but faulty. Bonuses are toxic at startups.

    Outside of sales rep commissions, I don't think startups should be giving employee or management bonuses in the early years -- or at least not before the company has very well understood financial performance. The problem is that bonuses don't match well with the audacious ambition of the startup and aren't fair to the company or its employees.

    Inevitably, startups don't quite live up to their goals. Using revenue metrics because they are simple, consider the startup that has $3 million in previous year revenue and is hoping to 4X that this coming year to $12 million. Instead it does $9 million in sales. The team bonus is based on hitting or exceeding the goals. The team has worked really hard and, by all means, has done strong work growing the business. Yet it's fallen short of the goal. Unfortunately, somewhere over the course of the year, the team members start to assume that they will get the bonus. After all, the team tripled the business and worked really hard to do it. Yet the bonus was clearly for meeting or exceeding the goals.

    What should the company do now? Disappoint their hard-working team by not giving a bonus or give the bonus and suggest that the goals are soft goals and the team will get paid as long as there is general progress and the team works hard. Add to the scenario that at $12 million in revenue the company would be positive cash flow for the first time and have cash to pay a bonus and at $9 million the company loses $1 million and will need to raise more capital and suffer additional dilution to cover the loss and potentially the bonus. It's easy to imagine employees leaving the company and saying that the goals are crazy -- "we tripled the business and didn't even get our bonuses."