I have been interviewing with a successful startup. The first interview was a basic screening round, then another round with a senior engineer, and then there was another one with their CTO. The CTO was really impressed with me and said that I'm the perfect guy for the role. The salary negotiation started after that. This was with the COO.
This person asked for my ctc and I made a mistake of sending the salary instead of ctc. The salary component is obviously lower than the ctc. They made an offer before I realized my mistake. The new salary was just 2% more than my current one. This means, they used the ctc I declared to estimate current salary. Moreover, I'm already being underpaid.
I got back to them and explained what happened. I asked for a raise on the current offer, and also told them why I was worth it. To this, they responded that they had had an internal discussion and that they need a week's time to get back to me.
I feel that they might be thinking about interviewing other candidates. The conundrum is that I like the role at this startup, and now, I feel like they might pick someone else over me to keep their costs low. Should I accept the first offer so that I can get the job or wait till next week to hear what they've got to say?