On-target earnings (OTE) is one of many ways companies try to get away with paying GTM folks less. Especially startups that are 0-1 and 1-10. I’m coming on strong, but hear 👏me 👏out 👏 because you can negotiate your way out of this. I’ve done that.
If you’re considering a GTM role at a startup, you’ve probably considered a role that offered OTE. They sound like:
$80K base plus “uncapped commission”
$140K base and up to OTE $180K
Or this IRL example below
Employers will dangle it in front of you like it’s a good thing 🥕
They’re littered across job postings that I’ve seen in my last two job searches. One thing they all have in common: They never, never show you the math. There’s no definition of what “hitting target” actually means. It’s just responsibility after responsibility.
Expected. While it makes sense to offer GTM roles OTE, what happens when there’s:
No growth loop or product-market, message-market, or search-market fit?
Lots of system-building and foundation-building required before anything converts?
No defined goal? (this kills marketing roles especially)
Goalposts move because comp structure wasn’t thought through?
You’re leading a GTM motion in a new market they haven’t penetrated?
You’re doing this in a market that’s already tough?
What I’ve learned is that when companies at this stage offer OTE, it usually means they haven’t figured out their targets, comp structure, goals, or how to hit them. They may not know if they’re reachable. You’re expected to figure it out.
That isn’t the bad part. It’s a job after all; you are supposed to figure things out.
The unfair part is that you’re expected to solve that problem yourself, while betting your salary on it. This is a cost to you, especially when you don’t negotiate and aren't on the same page on defined goals, targets, and structure.
Startups need cash flow certainty (understandable), but so do you. I believe there’s a better way to compensate employees who are joining at this stage.
Here’s why and how I negotiated an offer that aligned with my values instead.
I wanted to write this because more women need to know about this nuance and negotiate accordingly. There’s a generalization that we negotiate less, and I don’t want it to cost us more than it already has. If you haven’t negotiated, do it. You always have leverage, and you are not being difficult even in a tough market. Employers expect you to negotiate. Remember, it’s just the start of the conversation. Always happy here to chat about all things comp and negotiation via DM.
At a previous role, I was promised a $140K base + up to $180K with OTE. But there was no actual path to earn it.
Clients churned constantly, targets kept shifting, and the bonus structure was chaos. Colleagues would get random $500 checks, and no one knew when they would get paid out. Nobody understood how the comp plan worked. Not even our manager…
There was zero clarity. The problem wasn’t just OTE but inconsistent OTE. The company had built a comp structure they couldn’t execute, let alone explain.
On top of that, the product was broken. There were workarounds stacked on workarounds. What looked like a strong offer slowly became a reason to start looking again.
I’ve learned the hard way that OTE is really three things:
They’re transferring, not sharing, risk to you; companies shift all that uncertainty onto you.
They’re still in a figuring-it-out phase, lack organizational clarity, and often lack execution (sometimes, even vision), which…
Forces you to take a pay cut while you solve their problems
I don’t think this is fair. But what is fair? When you’re building 0-1 and 1-10, it’s hard work for everyone.
After this experience, I was determined to find a better pay structure that worked for me. I didn’t let feeling defeated get in the way because time is money and money is time, but I knew one thing: I didn’t want to negotiate OTE. I only negotiated base + equity and managed to secure a milestone-driven comp structure. It made more sense to me.
I also decided that I was only looking for roles in Series B and beyond if I had to negotiate OTE. I didn’t mind if the role was still building 0-1 and 1-10, such as expanding into a new market, but I wanted to be at a Series B company that figured out product-market, message-market, and search-market fit somewhere. Some predictability.
I managed to skip OTE and negotiate a new base that included my entire OTE, as outlined in the original offer, plus more equity. I was glad because we were starting 0-1 in a new market and the goals weren’t very defined. I actively asked them during the negotiation to outline what I would need to do to hit my targets, and when that fell short, I had the upper hand.
You should want equity. That’s the golden rule in Silicon Valley.
But remember, equity is real ownership in something that might work. Equity shouldn’t be instead of fair base comp. It should be in addition to it. Girls gotta eat even if the startup doesn’t work out (big fan of the 6-month emergency fund). And it might not. That’s what 0-1 means.
According to Google AI overviews, at pre-seed/seed, GTM equity averages 0.5% to 1.5%. By Series A, it drops to 0.1% to 0.3%. If you’re living in a major city like SF, you also need base pay to live while you wait for equity to maybe be worth something.
Overall, when companies hire someone, they’re taking a bet on them. When people like you and me agree to work at a company, we’re also taking a bet on the founder, the company, how they’re solving the problem, and more.
If companies are confident enough to hire you and for you to do your job well (if not, why hire them in the first place?), they should also be confident enough to pay you fairly.
Once again, we’re all betting on each other so let’s try to make information as symmetric as possible.
Founders will tell you OTE makes sense. They’re not entirely wrong. But they’re missing the problem that will affect you: they’re treating and selling 0-1 like a predictable business.
Startups can’t burn runway on base salaries they’re not sure they can sustain.
We’re all taking a bet. If you hit targets, you get paid more. On paper, this sounds fair.
The implicit promise is that you control your outcome and rewards are based on your performance over activity. This is actually fundamental to taking your career to the next level.
You can’t hit a number that the founder hasn’t defined. And they can’t define it, especially if they haven’t found product-market fit.
When there are so many unknowns, OTE forces you to figure all that out while betting your salary. It turns risk-sharing into risk transfer.
In 0-1, you’re doing research: testing channels, validating ICP, figuring out message-market fit. If OTE measures “leads” or “deals”, you could hit 100 leads from a channel that doesn’t scale and suffer from high churn rates (true story).
If the founder can’t predict targets and continues to play around with comp structure like moving goalposts, they don’t have a plan and can’t promise OTE based on performance. It feels dishonest to make such promises.
The best people in early-stage startups are those who stay calm in uncertainty, make judgment calls with incomplete info, and move fast. OTE does nothing to pay for that skill… You’re anxious about hitting an arbitrary number instead of being adaptive and thinking clearly.
Good performance in early-stage GTM has two parts. Leads, pipeline, deals, revenue. But it’s also adapting at speed and being a good collaborator, which is more subjective.
Final outputs like revenue or project completion reflect past work rather than immediate effort. There are many, many lagging indicators in GTM.
I was reading High Output Management by Andy Grove recently, and I highly recommend it if you want to dive into the last three points.
Before you negotiate, you need to know what actually matters to you. There’s no right or wrong way to do it. Everyone’s different, and there are so many ways of getting paid.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself to narrow your priorities:
What would make me walk away from this offer? (minimum $, equity, specific benefits, etc)
What’s my non-negotiable?
How much risk can I actually carry right now?
Could I survive on just the base if this fails?
How much of my thinking energy do I want to spend on comp anxiety vs. doing the work?
Am I optimizing for equity, learning, autonomy, security, or impact?
On top of that, you also need to know what matters to your employer. It’s a match-making process. Here are some questions you can ask your employer:
What have you already learned about this market?
If this hypothesis falls apart, what’s the pivot?
How much runway do we have to figure this out?
What channels are already working? If none, what channels do you think will work?
What does success look like in months one through six vs. seven through twelve?
If they answer without using the word “leads,” they probably understand what they’re building.
What’s your biggest assumption?
What’s my actual decision-making authority?
If commission, what’s the formula and when does it pay?
If milestones, what are they and what’s the payout?
What are the vesting terms? (Cliff, schedule, strike price)
Can we structure tranches tied to ARR or revenue milestones?
What happens to equity if the company pivots or fails?
If they dodge any of these, that’s your answer too.
You’re betting on the upside! But you’re also carrying more risk. Your liquid income is lower right now, so you need to be able to survive on your base if the equity never materializes. Remember, most startups fail. You’re also betting that you’ll stay long enough for vesting to matter.
This LI post was super interesting.
Comp structure that works: Base + milestone-driven (highest possible) equity. This aligns everyone around the same north star. If they won’t commit to clear milestones, they don’t have a clear plan, and you shouldn’t join!
You want to move fast, make decisions, not ask permission, and own the outcome. If your founder is hands off, this is a great match. The tradeoff is that you’re carrying more execution risk. Unclear guardrails also mean you might move in a direction the founder doesn’t want, creating conflict.
Comp structure that works: Fair base + standard equity + knowing how much runway you have. Your base needs to be high enough that you’re not panicking about money while you’re testing. You also need clarity upfront on what is failure (six months to validate? nine?) so you’re not second-guessing yourself.
If you want to work with someone who’s done this before, an experienced founder, you’re probably open to taking a pay cut. But not all experienced founders are good teachers. The learning also only compounds if you stay long enough to apply it.
Comp structure that works: fair base + equity. Your base needs to be enough that you’re not resentful about the pay cut. Equity keeps you around long enough to see the compounding.
You want to know that no matter what happens, you can pay rent and have six months of savings. You can’t carry risk right now, which means equity isn’t as attractive to you because it’s speculative. Milestone-driven equity might not appeal because milestones might not hit. You might miss out on the upside that people who take more risk capture.
Comp structure that works: highest base possible + standard equity.
You care about the problem more than the money. You want to work on something that matters, solve a problem you actually believe in. But you can become willing to sacrifice too much. You might take low pay for high mission. You might accept unclear comp structures because you’re mission-driven enough to figure it out. Founders know this and sometimes take advantage of it. Also, mission doesn’t pay rent if the startup fails.
Comp structure that works: fair base + equity, with clear milestones tied to impact metrics (not just revenue). Your base still needs to be livable. And you need milestones that are about the mission, i.e., user adoption, problem solved, impact achieved, not just revenue!
I didn’t want to prioritize commission and wanted to skip OTE altogether. My priorities were:
Joining a company that would grow and help me grow
Series B and beyond (I learned the hard way that startup stage matters) if VC-funded
Have plans to raise again if VC-funded
A fair base (I have a mortgage!)
Milestone-driven equity tied to revenue, not leads
Founder who wants to figure it out alongside you and helps unblock things you need
Product-market fit
Global team
Early-stage is hard. Startup comp negotiation is hard. You’re navigating ambiguity, making judgment calls with incomplete info, figuring out what the market actually needs.
So, before you say yes to the offer (and you might want to without overthinking because you like the founder, the mission, and the problem you’re about to help solve), hold your horses. Nothing you plan will go exactly as planned when you’re building 0-1 and 1-10.
The least founders can do is not structure your pay to punish you if the bet doesn’t work out. If they can’t commit to that, they can’t afford you.
am i... a marketer? is a newsletter about the weird experience of working in marketing right now. It’s where I share what I’m learning, unlearning, and experimenting in marketing and beyond, for marketers carrying unreasonable expectations. If this resonated, share it with someone who’s in the thick of it.
About the author:
Hey, I’m Nini. I’m a head of marketing who’s spent about a decade in content, growth, demand gen, and product marketing, plus a lot of “figure it out.” I’ve worked at global companies, bootstrapped ones, some agency work after being in-house my whole career, and back to series A-B startups.
I’ve lived in 10 cities, so third-culture kid, I know. When I’m not writing, I’m outside hiking, skiing, making pasta from scratch, or creating a new playlist!
Want to go deeper? Here’s how I can help:
☎️ If you’re an early- to mid-career marketer, book a 1:1 coaching call, and we’ll dig into your marketing career or strategy together
📞 If you’re a founder or solo marketer, book a 1:1 consulting call, and we’ll look at how we can build your 0-1 marketing motion together
🥂 Come hang at a GTM dinner club event if you’re a woman in a GTM role; I host these regularly!
🤖 Messing with Linear, Relato, and Gumloop to build a content system at work!
🌉 I’m hosting a couple of things in the next month:
If you find this interesting, you can find me on LinkedIn! We don’t have to do that, though. You can also find me on X and Instagram.
🛜 See you on the internet! 🌐
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