I am building a marketplace that is composed of bloggers and writers as the supply side of the marketplace. My target is to acquire at least 400 of them before Sept 2015. My idea is to offer stock options to the first 5 (say 5000 shares each out of a million shares of the company). I can ask them to bring another 20 bloggers each, to whom I can award 500 shares each. The rest of the later bloggers will have 100% return on revenue generated by them in the first 3 months after the launch. Can anybody help me refine my intuition? Thanks!
Equity does not work in this type of scenario. Equity is the most expensive way to pay someone for you as the owner. For the recipient the value is 0 and the possibility it could be worth something more is not going to motivate them unless you have had a previous exit which would make it far more compelling.
If you are trying to build something like Contently. My suggestion would be:
1. Find a company that wants to create and implement a content marketing strategy
2. Find a writer/s that meets the requirement
3. Post the writing
4. See if you surpass the clients goals
5. Measure your success
6. Repeat 1-6
Eventually you make move into a marketplace model like Contently.
Just my two cents.
