Why a Stripe employee hired a financial advisor and decided to sell in a tender offer
Martin oversees content and brand strategy for Secfi. Previously, he ran content programs for companies like Affirm, Tradeshift, and PandaDoc.
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Martin oversees content and brand strategy for Secfi. Previously, he ran content programs for companies like Affirm, Tradeshift, and PandaDoc.
Who: Early Stripe employee
Marital status: Recently Married
Equity type: Non-Qualified Stock Options (NSOs) and Restricted Stock Units (RSUs)
Financial goals:
Sam has worked at Stripe for some time but never thought too much about her equity. She had a vague understanding of how it worked, but hadn’t really put too much thought into planning for it. All she knew is that it would likely be valuable someday.
Stripe typically conducted tender offers once a year — a company-sponsored program where employees could sell a portion of their equity back to the company (or investors) — but Sam didn’t really think about it until 2021 when the valuation shot up. And during the last tender offer the company held, she wavered on a decision
“Honestly, I went back and forth. I thought I wasn't going to do it, and then I did. And then I
logged onto Shareworks and I had actually missed the window,” she said. Now, she was prepared for when the next one would be announced.
In early 2023, Stripe made a major funding announcement with the main purpose of providing their employees with liquidity through a tender. Despite a drop in valuation, Sam was still interested, but she wanted to make the right decision. Unfortunately, when the announcement did come, she was out of the country on her honeymoon. But she didn’t want to miss another opportunity. At the very least, she wanted to make an informed decision.
She had heard of Secfi in the past, and had used some of the tools. When she got the email from Stripe about the tender offer, she decided to speak with an advisor at Secfi Wealth.
They had worked with financial advisors and CPAs in the past, but they were always left feeling like they were not getting the best service. “I'm still trying to figure out what NSOs stand for, what they are, and how they work And they're talking about all these other terms and details I'm thinking, ‘I don't quite get what's going on. But they seem to know what they're doing, so okay,’” Sam’s husband said. “It felt very transactional,” agreed Sam.
But meeting Chris Arnold, CFP, their Secfi Wealth advisor was different. “When we had our first call with Chris, I felt like he did a really good job of explaining and educating us about the whole process and what all of this meant,” her husband said. “I think that was what sold us on Secfi. Just how they kind of helped us understand what was going to be done with our money rather than just handle our money.”
“Chris just gave us a really good feeling and [it] felt like he really kind of approached it with a lot of empathy and heard us out,” Sam said. “He didn't pressure us in any particular way. He knew what questions to ask, sensed the level of struggle that we were at, then just guided us from there.”
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