The Sugarcube Story
Kymberlee Price has spent the last decade helping her friends negotiate new job offers as a fun side hustle outside her career leading cybersecurity teams. In the summer of 2023, she started consulting on offer negotiations for friends of friends that were impacted by layoffs in the tech industry. Word of mouth referrals turned into a cascade of new clients, inspiring her to offer this service to the public to help workers get the best possible deal in a new job.
“I loved the fact that straight out of the gate, I expressed concern about negotiating too hard, because that can be a recipe for bad feelings with the new company. (spoiler: there were no bad feelings). What I discovered is that Kym's process takes the emotion completely out of the negotiation. She is completely data driven, but with a view of "total compensation" that goes way beyond what I'm used to considering. Not only did she factor in the usual elements like stock options, bonuses, etc; she also included healthcare, 401k matching, and a projection of how the complete offer will "age", assuming a certain amount of raises, bonuses, etc.”
Leon Adato,
Principal Developer Advocate
https://www.adatosystems.com/2023/12/11/what-i-learned-about-salary-negotiation-from-kym-possible/
“Kymberlee helped me think about things I never have thought about when it comes to negotiating my salary, and I have been in the games industry for quite some time. I was very nervous in advocating for myself, or worried about asking for too much (hello, imposter syndrome). Through her empathetic and thoughtful coaching, I learned about what to not say about my compensation expectations to the recruiter. I also learned that negotiating total compensation goes beyond just base salary and bonus, such as holiday pay, performance structures and medical benefits to name a few. While my original offer was very strong, I was able to negotiate a counteroffer that led to a $35,000 increase. This is life changing for me and puts me in a new pay tier I have never been able to accomplish before without her negotiation strategy.”
S.B.
Video Game Industry Veteran
“Kymberlee identified several compensation issues beyond just salary that I hadn’t noticed in the offer. Despite closing much of the OTE gap through negotiation, I ended up not accepting. When you looked at the higher out of pocket healthcare costs, and reduced 401k matching, Kymberlee pointed out that I would lose money making this move. It was a hard decision, but without Kymberlee’s holistic view I probably would not have noticed these details and accepted an offer that hurt my family financially for years to come.”
N.V., Principal Solutions Consultant
SaaS Dev Ops Industry