# Outsetter's choose-your-own-adventure compensation model

- **Episode:** [101](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/101.md) (2024-05-28)
- **Type:** news-roundup
- **Tags:** compensation, benefits, employee-choice, startup
- **Time:** 17:57–22:47 (start 1077s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/101?t=1077](https://truthliesandwork.com/101?t=1077)

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[17:57] Al Elliott: What I love is that Leanne's basically going, I don't want to hear about it now. Shut up, Al. We were talking about this, this Jeff guy. So on Twitter/X, I don't know how to call it. I suppose I should be calling it X. I saw a tweet which basically it's by a guy called Jeff Roberts, uh, who is the co-founder of Outsetter. Also really interesting background. He was really heavily involved in, I think it's called Buildera, which is another, um, another startup that got acquired. Um, interesting guy. And he pays everyone $210,000
[18:28] Leanne Elliott: Wow
[18:28] Al Elliott: $100,000 a year. Not like— it just pays everyone. Everyone. Doesn't matter what you do, that's how much you get paid
[18:35] Leanne Elliott: What do people typically do in his business?
[18:37] Al Elliott: So Outsetter is— it's— they describe themselves as an all-in-one payments authentication, CRM, email, and help desk platform for SaaS and membership businesses
[18:47] Leanne Elliott: Snappy
[18:49] Al Elliott: Don't say that. I took it directly from his, from his, uh, profile. So, uh, you're criticizing his copywriting
[18:55] Leanne Elliott: there
[18:55] Al Elliott: But what I, what I understand is that if you have some kind of SaaS or membership business, then Outsetter is going to be essentially your HubSpot for you. It's going to deal with everything for you. Um, quite an interesting business. Um, co-started it with someone he met at Builderall. I want to say Builderall, maybe it was Builderall. Apologies if I've got that wrong, but just really interesting guy. And so the whole idea at Outsetter is that they offer this sort of choose your own adventure. Remember those, Leanne, when you were kids, choose your own adventure? If you want to meet the robot, go to page 43
[19:23] Leanne Elliott: Yeah
[19:23] Al Elliott: It was exactly that. And so they choose— they have this choose-your-own-adventure compensation model, which basically helps the— or allows the employee to set their own salary, their own workdays, and also earn equity. So for example, everyone who works 5 days a week earns $210,000 a year. That's what they work. And then there's a sliding scale. If you want to work 4 days a week, then it's prorated down to 4 days. If you want to work just 1 day a week, top of my head, I think it was $42,000 it works out at. But basically it is a fraction of of the $210,000. I thought this was really interesting. Now, one thing that we didn't really go properly into on the article, um, was how they earn equity, because according to Jeff, he's saying you earn equity at the same rate as the founders. Um, but everything else just seemed really smart. And I think the— and it even showed this kind of like graphic of a dial. I mean, I don't know whether it was just made for the actual post, but the dial where you just basically, you turn the dial to go to, I'm doing 4 days a week, and then this is how much you earn
[20:21] Leanne Elliott: Yeah
[20:21] Al Elliott: So, it's a really smart way of doing things
[20:23] Leanne Elliott: Yes, very creative. Very creative. I think, yeah. I mean, what I want, if anyone's listening and going, that's a brilliant idea, I should implement it in my business immediately, hold on a second. I think it's worth remembering the what and the why. So, this is what Jeff is doing. The why, as we've talked about, it's about providing flexibility. It allows people to choose a working pattern or ways of working, or indeed, Salary that they need to facilitate the life that they want, whether they have a significant side hustle, whether they have children, whether they have caring responsibilities. So I think it's actually the flexibility and autonomy that's really exciting about this, and the agency you're giving to an employee in terms of choosing their own working working patterns and working life—not necessarily the exact structure that that Jeff has has used. My only do you know what? My only concern. And I think it is a really good idea because of this, as I said, this flexibility, this autonomy, this agency. My only concern would be the people that go, oh yeah, 4-day work week, that sounds nice, and then actually end up squeezing 5 days into 4 days' work and then aren't getting compensated for it. I'm sure there are mechanisms in place to prevent this from happening. I know you mentioned there that people, you know, pick kind of their tasks and stuff as well. Um, so I'm sure there's, um, there's mechanisms in place to prevent this from happening and people overworking and not getting compensated for it. Um, so that'd be only— again, if you're, if you're listening to this going, oh, this is a cool idea, something worth bearing in mind. And I think it'll be that 4 to 5 days that's going to give them the real tricky thing, um, in terms of managing people's time. But all in all, cool idea, like it
[22:04] Al Elliott: Well, we spoke to— I spoke to Jeff on Twitter and said, would you like to come on the pod? And he was like, yes, I would
[22:09] Leanne Elliott: Hey, go on, Jeff
[22:10] Al Elliott: Yeah. So by the time you hear this, we'll have interviewed Geoff, we'll have asked him all the questions that hopefully you've got in your head, and we'll find exactly how it works because it's, it could be a really interesting way. And also just from financially modelling, you can just go, right, well, you know, it's just, it's a spreadsheet. This is how much money we've got. All right, we can't take anyone else on. And that might also be another question to ask. What happens if you spend all your wage bill and there's still, there's gaps in the business and you can't bring someone else on?
[22:37] Leanne Elliott: Yeah
[22:37] Al Elliott: at that level. So, I will ask all the difficult questions that are in your head when I speak to Geoff
[22:42] Leanne Elliott: Cool. And sorry about the copy thing, Geoff. It really is very catchy