A Reddit user, claimed he worked for an early stage start-up for over three years without salary or any kind of payment, based on the promise of employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), but is now being “ghosted” by the company.
Sharing his “learning experience” and frustrations online as a cautionary tale for others, the user identified by his handle, ‘thewanderingfounder’, wrote a post in the r/Entrepreneur subrediit titled “Worked with a startup for 3+ years, now they’re ghosting me on the ESOPs they promised”.
‘Lessons Learned’: Burned by promise of ESOPs, being ghosted…
Categorising the post as a “lesson learned”, the netizen wrote that he had earlier shared a post about how began working, stating, “A couple weeks ago, I shared a post about how I worked for 3+ years with an early-stage startup purely on an ESOP promise. No salary, just equity. After a name change and new registration midway through, I kept asking for updated documentation but got delay after delay. Now that the vesting is done, they’ve ghosted me completely.”
He added that the original post got a lot of support and advice, which he is “really grateful for”, adding, “Many of you suggested exploring legal options, and I did. Spoke to a few lawyers, showed them whatever docs I had. But realistically, there’s not much I can do.”
No legal recourse: ‘Emotionally draining path…’
He noted that the original ESOP “wasn’t under the new entity, and pursuing it legally would be a long, expensive, and emotionally draining path with no guarantee of anything.”
He added, “There’s a lot more I could say about how they operated, but honestly, I’m tired. I even considered messaging the current team members to warn them about the founders, but I’m not sure if that’s the right move either. It feels petty on one hand, but on the other don’t people deserve to know?”
“So yeah, no clear direction. Just sitting with the frustration. If nothing else, I hope this continues to be a reminder: don’t work without proper paperwork, no matter how exciting the opportunity seems. Don’t trust the, we’ll sort it out later line,” he advised.
How did fellow Redditors react? ‘Thanks for sharing… name the company…’
Reactions were thankful, with one user saying, “Lesson learned Buddy, Thank you for sharing your experience, I wish your hard work gives you the result you have paid.”
Another wanted the story to include the name so that the company cannot do this with another employees. They said, “Definitely tell the other people so the same doesn’t happen to them. It might make the company want to pay you or whatever so they don’t lose business or have anything negatively affect them. Be loud about it, post about it everywhere so everyone knows what kind of company they are. Kill their business.”
To this the original poster responded, “Yea that’s what even I was thinking, I am just too occupied with my work, I am not getting time to do all this, but seems like I have no other option.”