We are on a mission to make care flows work harder than care teams (see Mission). We have designed our compensation packages and philosophy to attract, retain and incentivize the best talent in the world who share our philosophy and desire to work on this mission.
<aside> ℹ️ Please keep in mind that we don’t see our compensation philosophy/framework as a static document. We plan to update it every year and, therefore, welcome your feedback!
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Our compensation philosophy is based on a set of principles that we strongly believe in and that are consistent with our Values.
As Awell is still a relatively small startup, we won’t be able to pay FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix & Google) salaries. However, we’re convinced that Awell has a lot to offer that these companies can’t: an opportunity to have a real, positive impact on the world, an agile and flexible work environment, a lot of freedom and responsibility for each team member, and, most likely, the opportunity to be part of a health tech success story.
But that doesn’t mean we don’t pay our team well. Our base compensation packages are based on 50th percentile benchmark data from Radford (which is based on all companies, not only startups) and we offer the opportunity to exchange equity for more salary (to get closer to the 75th percentile salary benchmark).
At Awell, we don’t believe there is a strong correlation between experience or age and impact. Therefore, your impact on the business will drive your level and, therefore, your compensation.
We ensure that those with the same role and responsibilities who are at the same level are paid equitably.
However, we don't think it’s fair to pay people the same salary wherever they live as this would mean that our team members in the US would be far worse off than our team members in India. Therefore, to ensure our compensation is also fair, we make an adjustment based on their cost of living.
We strive to have a compensation framework that is simple and easy to understand. This doesn’t mean our framework is simplistic. We do extensive analysis (based on data) to ensure our compensation is fair and attractive.
We want every Awell team member to be and act like a shareholder within a culture of collective achievement. Everyone should be a missionary.
We fully agree with the individual bonuses approach from Molly Graham in this First Round Review article:
Startups should avoid performance-based increases for the first couple years an employee is with the company. As an early employee, most of the value people should be getting is the increase in the value of their equity as the company grows. Giving people performance bumps will get complicated and potentially unfair fast. But, the logic follows, if an increase is absolutely necessary, it should come in the form of equity — not base salary.
Increasing the company value is our performance-based bonus. We all have the same objective.