Stock option plan is not optional :)
7th of June, 2016. 9:00. All hands with Mariusz, our CEO, it was one of the meetings that changed the way that the company operates. This day we heard that we merge with our competitor from Spain, Doctoralia. And it gave us the starting point to run the LATAM world (since that day we have opened offices in Brazil and Mexico and built the team in Colombia and Chile). The second information was about our new benefit — the share option plan.
When you look at the market, more and more companies, especially startups, decide to give the option plan to their employees. More often it’s given to the specific group of people: managers, heads, people in key positions. In Docplanner, we decided that all of us should receive a part of the company. For us, it was an obvious move. Since the very beginning of our journey here, we heard that there are no “employees” in Docplanner — only entrepreneurs (employee = works on tasks; entrepreneur = works on goals with autonomy and responsibility). We believe that when you own a part of the company, you feel that you are working on something that is yours as well. Not for the new car of our CEO ;)
What is ESOP?
Instead of offering the standard benefits, we have chosen the one, which value grows along with our engagement and results we achieve. Each of us, after 6 months, receives an individual stock option plan. The number of options is fixed and depends on several internal conditions, e.g. your role in the company. But their value, because of the constant growth of the company, increases all the time. You can check the value of your options at every moment thanks to the created calculator but also play with different scenarios: what will be my ESOP value if the company grows 2, 5 or 10 times. It is a perk, so each of us gets it “for free”, we don’t need to invest anything. The number of received options, as I mentioned, is fixed, so even if we are promoted or our scope of responsibility changes, it doesn’t affect the ESOP. But there is one moment when we can decide if you want to be granted more share options — at that exact moment, we can invest a part of your salary to get more of them. But it’s only a one-time possibility.
Where is my money?
We believe that ESOP is a benefit calculated in the long run — we want to really reward people who have been with us for a while and put a lot of their work and commitment. That is why to own 100% of stock option plan we have to be on board for a while. After 2,5 years, we get 25% of the initial plan that stays with us forever (first cliff). After another year, we get another 25% and so on. In the end, we need to spend 5,5 years as DPralians to get 100% of the initial stock option plan. If we leave in the meantime, we stay with the number that already was vested (e.g. when leaving the company after 3,5 years, you still own 50% of the plan). It doesn’t mean that we get money after each cliff. For this to happen, one of the 2 things have to occur: we need to sell the company or enter the exchange stock market. In the meantime, we have access to all company’s KPIs so we can monitor the situation and act upon it.
Why Employee Stock Option Plan?
Share options are a mechanism used by both private and public companies. It is evident that as the company grows and employs more people, many aspects of company management become blurred. The concept of being a mini-CEO, creating mini startups in a startup has always been close to our heart. We have always worked on goals that have been connected with the company’s strategy. We have also tried to be transparent with the company’s financial results so that each of us knows where we are. We never had the ambition to become a company with tons of unused benefits.
Mariusz, our CEO, nicely summarized this topic: “I believe that giving shares has a positive effect on both the company and society as a whole. In this way, new entrepreneurs are born, and the quality of the market increases. If you run the entrepreneur’s attitude, you usually start working better. You make better decisions and are more motivated. You care about the company. That’s why it’s a popular procedure in Silicon Valley. In addition, when we imagined the moment when we would go public or sell the company, we came to the conclusion that it would be nice to enjoy it together. Whether we sell for half a billion or a billion dollars — many people will make a lot of money from it. “
Share option plan is some kind of promise. It gives us the feeling that we work for our own bonus in the future and because we work on goals, we see that each of us has an impact on the company revenue. If you work in a Tech team, by creating an amazing and useful product or simply maintaining the high quality of it, you make customers happy. By that, we will have more of them, which indicates higher revenue. But still, we don’t have a voice to vote on the decisions as we are not a part of the board :)
