Advice on startup offer I have received

I have received a offer from a local start-up and was presented an offer.

I spent the last few days reading on this board looking for insight into the start-up financing world. The team is three co-founders, 3 developers and about 12 headcount for this year.

Here are the details:

1. Salary, about 10-20% below market value for my position - Director of Sales/Mktg.
2. 4 year vesting schedule, if sold shares are automatically fully vested.
3. "Additionally, because you'll be one of our first employees, you'll be awarded equity in XYZ through (subject to individual performance targets and vesting)."
4. "On a fully vested, fully awarded basis, we intend for your total share ownership to be 0.5% of fully-diluted common equity."

I am trying to do the analysis about what happens if the company is sold/bought. That is the end game from what I can gather... What questions should I be asking?

Considering you are going to get "near market value" for your salary for your role, you are in a pretty good position where it isn't costing you much.

A lot of people would take a 10% - 20% pay cut just to do work they love, so if you think you would really enjoy this role then that might be as good a deciding factor as any. You can then consider the equity to be a nice bonus on top.

I think generally people get much more hung up on equity when they are getting a much lower salary.

Does the job look fun? Do you think they will succeed? Those two questions are probably more important.

Well this doesnt look like a good offer for you. You seem to be interested more in contract which is well done instead of the opportunities you could bring to a startup, and make more money this way.