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I'm not a great negotiator

5/13/2015

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I spent several years working at an Internet startup back when they were all the rage, and shortly after leaving the company my "worthless" shares of stock were suddenly equivalent to about a year's salary.  (Had I sold them all at the right time I could have retired early, but I don't want to dredge up that painful memory.)

With my found money in hand I gave myself a year to start a small company, with a business partner who, as it turns out, didn't actually do any business.  I spent the next ten months designing and prototyping an online game called "Pawns" that was kind of "Magic: The Gathering" only with collectible characters instead of cards.  (Hey, this was many years ago -- it was an original concept at the time.)  
Picture
By the time I was finished with the prototype my "free" year was mostly up, but I did manage to pitch the game once to a local company called Amaze Entertainment.  They passed on the project but liked me enough to make a job offer.  I was exhausted and out of money so the "negotiation" went like this:
JOHN
So, you're not interested in my pitch, but you'd 
like to hire me to be an employee here?

AMAZE
Yes.

JOHN
Um, okay.  Is the salary you mentioned negotiable?

AMAZE
No.

JOHN
Is there a signing bonus of some kind because 
at other companies I've worked at they --

AMAZE
No, we don't pay signing bonuses here.

JOHN
What about royalties or profit sharing?

AMAZE
No.

JOHN
I've been working pretty hard and I'm kind of stressed out.  I'd like to take a few weeks --

AMAZE
We need you to start on Monday.

JOHN
(quiety, after a short pause)
Okay...
Other than that one attempt I've never been too interested in starting a company, despite my many years of industry experience.  I just want to make games, and running my own company would not leave me much time to do that...
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