Equity is table stakes in the startup reward stack. So, when everyone offers the same ‘thing’, how do you differentiate? The simple answer: You bridge the gap between equity and incentive.

Despite being one of the best long-term incentives, most companies neglect their equity program. Early in my career, I saw three companies invest heavily in an equity program (costing tens of thousands of dollars), only to fail to inform and incentivise their employees.

This is the major failing of most companies. You can capitalise on others’ failures to improve your equity program’s effectiveness for current and prospective people.

I frame equity communication in two major ways to turbo-charge its effectiveness:

1. Active communication
2. Passive communication

Active communication is about understanding the major touchpoints for intentional, human, two-way conversations about equity.

Passive communication involves systems, collateral, and artifacts that silently reinforce the message over time, building knowledge or satisfying curiosity as needed.

Before we break this down and understand its application in your business, I want to introduce two important concepts to help us in both our active and passive communication.

1. Storyboarding

Airbnb’s history features a famous example where they co-opted a technique from Disney called storyboarding. Using it, we can define your people’s equity experience based on key milestones.

2. The 11-star Experience

Airbnb overlaid an experiential framework over storyboard moments, known as the 11-star experience. They defined a 1-star experience through to an 11-star experience, aiming to create the highest star experience possible in a scalable way.

(11 stars is an out of this world experience. It is the best of the best. It is probably unachievable at scale or reasonable cost.)

We want to define each major communication touchpoint, classify them as active or passive opportunities, and optimise them for an 11-star experience.

Active Communication

Let’s consider this in practice.

When are the key touch points that someone experiences equity in your organisation?

1. They’re being hired; this is part of their compensation package.
2. The company raised a round; this impacts their equity value.
3. They get a performance refresh; this impacts their equity amount.

Great, now we know when to actively communicate equity. How do we consider the experience spectrum?

Let’s take the first touchpoint, when equity is discussed as part of their package during the hiring process.

What does this experience spectrum look like?

1-Star:

• The recruiter deflects deeper questions, saying, “It’s just standard startup equity.”
• The candidate assumes it’s low value or too complex to understand, assigning no value to it.

I’ll pause to say most companies are here. The bar is this low.

3-Star:

• The candidate receives a one-page FAQ or a link to an option plan summary.
• It answers “what” but not “why.” There are no narratives or examples.
• The candidate leaves the conversation more confused than clear.

5-Star:

• The recruiter or people leader connects equity to ownership: “We want everyone here to share in the value we’re building.”
• They explain the mechanics and show scenarios tied to growth milestones.
• The candidate starts to get it — they feel informed and respected.

8-Star:

• The candidate receives a beautifully crafted ‘Equity Welcome Pack’. This pack includes a digital microsite or interactive guide that visualises the company’s valuation journey, shows key milestones, and explains how employees share in that success.
• It includes videos from early team members reflecting on what ownership means to them.
• The candidate feels invited into something special.

11-Star:

• The company flies the finalist candidates to their office or hosts a virtual “Equity Day” in the metaverse.
• They meet the founding team, tour the office, see the cap table evolve over time, and leave with a physical artifact: a framed “Future Owner Certificate” minted as an NFT tied to their offer.
• They share the experience online: “I’ve never seen a company do this; they made me believe in their mission and my role in it.”
• It’s absurdly generous, wildly impractical, and unforgettable.
• The company becomes famous for turning startup equity confusion into culture.

11 may be unrealistic, but now you can see the target experience, and with most AI tools, the 8-star experience isn’t far off being possible.

Imagine the impact of curating this experience across the other active touch points of their equity experience.

Yep. They’re filled with crazy levels of excitement, loyalty, and incentive.

Now let’s consider the other side.

Passive Communication

We want to consider moments where information can be embedded into artifacts or systems that passively reinforce the ownership narrative.

We can still apply the storyboard/11-star framework here. The key difference is this should be a readily available mechanism for incentivising your people through equity.

To help with this exercise, let’s consider the common questions people have during their tenure at your company. Here are the things I’ve seen people get curious about:

• Building a general education about equity. How else can you be incentivised?
• Answering common questions about equity grants.
• Connecting equity to future opportunity.

Let’s consider the main points in an employee’s journey that show up. In my experience, it is:

1. As a candidate
2. During onboarding
3. While employed
4. During offboarding

Let’s choose the intersection of two of those elements and discuss a solution.

“I’m an employee and I want to know the worth of my equity.”

A 3-star experience might be:

1. Access the HRIS to check my equity grant value and volume.
2. Access the intranet for the current fair market value.
3. Build my own spreadsheet to calculate the value.

Not bad, but it puts a lot of onus on the employee and is clunky.

Now I want to step that up to a 5-star experience.

​Here’s a quick equity value tool I vibe coded in Lovable.

We can prefill information so employees can quickly see their current equity value and project future scenarios, connecting their equity to an incentive!

Most companies treat equity as a spreadsheet problem. The smart ones treat it as a storytelling problem.

The ROI on your equity program won’t come from grant size or strike price. It comes from how clearly people connect their contribution to value creation. Every interaction — from offer to exit — is a chance to build that connection.

So storyboard the experience. Define what an exceptional experience could be, and match the experience in a way that makes ownership tangible.

Because equity only works when people believe in what they own and understand how to grow it.

A guest post by:

Matt McFarlane with FNDN Series

People and compensation insights for the modern tech startup.

​

​