Stock Options and Profit Sharing

Everyone who builds Hardal owns part of Hardal. Not just the founders, everyone. If you help build the thing, you should own a piece of what you build. That is the whole idea. The rest of this page is just the mechanics.

The whole idea, in one example

Before the mechanics, here is the whole thing in numbers. The numbers are made up, just to show the shape.

Say you are granted an option on 10,000 shares at $1 each. You pay nothing now. Over four years, those shares slowly become yours to buy, a little each month. Years later, if Hardal is worth $10 a share, you still get to buy at $1. You pay $10,000, and the shares are worth $100,000. If Hardal ends up worth nothing, you simply do not buy, and you have lost nothing.

That is it:

The $1 is your "strike price"
The four-year drip is "vesting"
Buying the shares is "exercising"

What changed

For a while this page said "no formal stock option plan yet." That is no longer true. We now have a real plan:

A stock option pool, carved out of the shares we reserved for the team.
Everyone on the team gets a grant, sized by role, when they joined, and impact.
Options are granted on Hardal, Inc. (our US company) common stock, to every team member, in every country.

Profit sharing still exists and has not gone away. We have been growing aggressively, so no profit in 2024-2025.

The plan terms

We kept the structure standard where standard is good, and pushed hard on the terms that are cheap for us and valuable to you.

4 years, 1-year cliff, monthly

Your grant vests over four years. You hit a one-year cliff first: nothing vests until you have been here twelve months, then 25% vests at once. After that, 1/48th of your total grant vests every month until you are fully vested at year four.

Vesting starts on your first day, not after a probation period. This is the market standard, and the standard is right, so we did not get creative with it.

A long window to exercise

The old default is 90 days: leave the company, and you have three months to find the cash to buy your vested options or lose them forever. That is a bad deal, and we do not use it.

You get up to 10 years from your grant date to exercise, whether you stay or leave. Because grants to our team are NSOs (more on that below), a long window costs Hardal almost nothing to offer. So we offer it.

Double-trigger acceleration, for everyone

If Hardal gets acquired and you are let go in connection with that deal, 100% of your unvested options vest immediately. Both things have to happen: an acquisition alone does not trigger it, and a normal departure does not either.

Most startups only give this to executives, if they give it at all. We give it to the whole team. There is no single-trigger acceleration, which keeps the plan clean for investors and acquirers.

A narrow definition of "bad leaver"

How you leave barely matters, on purpose:

You resign You keep every vested option.
We let you go for performance, fit, or a role that did not work out. You keep every vested option.
Fraud, gross misconduct, or breaking your confidentiality and IP obligations. Only here do you forfeit, including vested options. This is "for cause," and it is the only case.

Unvested options always return to the pool. Vested options are yours unless you did something in that last category.

How much you get

Every grant comes from the same formula, published here, applied the same way to everyone. We would rather defend one transparent system than private negotiations.

Your grant is set by three things:

Level. Your role and its scope, mapped to our existing leveling framework.
When you joined. Joining before the money was in was a bigger bet than joining after. Early risk earns more.
Impact. How much impact you have on Hardal.

Those three combine into a weighted score, and the score sets your grant. New hire, promotion, or refresh: same formula, every time. When you get a grant, we walk you through your own numbers so you can see exactly how they were built.

Refresh and promotion grants

Equity that fully vests at year four creates a cliff of its own: nothing left to earn. We do not want that. So:

Promotion: when you move up a level, you get a grant for the difference between your new level and your old one.
Tenure refresh: from your third year, a smaller annual grant keeps you earning ownership past the four-year mark.

At our stage this is more intention than heavy machinery. It becomes a real program as we grow.

FAQ

What is a stock option?

It is the right to buy a share of Hardal at a price fixed on the day you are granted it (the "strike price" or "exercise price"), no matter what the share is worth later. If Hardal is worth more down the line, you buy at the old, lower price. That gap is the point.

What does "exercise" mean?

Exercising means actually buying the shares your option covers, by paying the strike price. You do not have to exercise the moment you vest, and exercising can trigger tax, so it is a decision to make with an advisor, not on a whim.

What is "vesting"?

Vesting is how you earn your grant over time instead of all at once. Otherwise someone could join for a week and walk away owning a chunk of the company. Four-year schedule, one-year cliff (25% at the cliff), then monthly. Vesting starts your first day.

What are my options actually worth?

Honestly, nobody can tell you a true number today. There is no public market for Hardal shares, and private-company shares come with real restrictions on selling. We can tell you the strike price and what the last valuation said, but that is not a promise of what a buyer would pay. Options can be worth a lot or nothing. Anyone who tells you otherwise about an early-stage startup is selling something.

How is the strike price set?

We do not pick it. An outside firm runs a 409A valuation and sets the fair market value, and your strike price is fixed there. Setting it artificially low would create tax problems for both you and Hardal, so we cannot and do not do that. Valuations expire, so we re-run them periodically, which is part of why grants happen in batches.

Why do grants come in batches, not on my exact start date?

Two reasons: valuations have to be current, and every grant needs board approval. Like most startups, we approve grants a few times a year rather than one at a time. You are not penalized for the wait, because vesting is backdated to your actual start date.

Why options instead of just giving me shares?

Because handing you shares outright is treated as income in most countries, including Turkey, Spain, and the Netherlands. You would owe income tax immediately on stock you cannot sell, a tax bill with no cash to pay it. Options avoid that: no tax when you are granted them.

Are there taxes I should know about?

Yes, and this is the part where we cannot be your advisor. Grants to our team are NSOs (non-qualified stock options), because most of the team contracts with our US company rather than being US employees. With NSOs, income tax is generally due when you exercise, on the gap between the strike price and the value at that time. The exact treatment depends on where you pay tax.

What if someone messages me offering to buy my shares?

Don't engage. Cold outreach and LinkedIn ads offering to buy your Hardal shares or options are not approved by us, and any deal you make with them is not valid. Our documents require board approval for any transfer of shares, and that covers clever workarounds too. If a real chance to sell ever comes up, it will come from us directly, to the whole team at once, never from a stranger in your inbox. This applies after you leave, too.

What happens to my options if I move countries?

If you stay with Hardal and move, your options generally keep vesting on the same schedule with the same strike price. What can change is the tax treatment, because not every country handles equity the same way. We cannot re-cut or re-grant options to fit a personal move, so if you are planning one, tell us early and get independent tax advice.

How do I track my grant?

You will be able to see your grant, your vesting progress, your strike price, and what it would cost to exercise, all in one place once your grant is issued. We will point you to it when you are granted.

Can I suggest a change to my option documents?

The legal documents are a standard set, pre-approved by the board, so we cannot customize them per person. But we did not slip in anything unusual: the terms are either completely standard or, where it counts, as team-friendly as we could make them. If you spot an actual error in your paperwork, tell us immediately.

I have a question that isn't here.

Ask in a public channel if you can, so the answer helps the next person too. Barış and Berkay can take anything this page does not cover.

Our commitment has not changed since the first version of this page: the people who help build Hardal share in what it becomes. Now you can see exactly how.