If one obtains a seed round of funding, how much should go to pay the founder's salary versus other needs?
Ask HN: What is a good lead founder's salary?
1–10 of 10 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is a good lead founder's salary?
#2pay minimum living expenses with a little cushion to be safe?
Re: Ask HN: What is a good lead founder's salary?
#3pay minimum living expenses with a little cushion to be safe?
Obviously the founder should be rewarded much more than this when the company is seeing real revenue. At what point(s) would you say the salary should be significantly more than this?
Re: Ask HN: What is a good lead founder's salary?
#4pay minimum living expenses with a little cushion to be safe?
Obviously the founder should be rewarded much more than this when the company is seeing real revenue. At what point(s) would you say the salary should be significantly more than this?
That's a pretty good question. The best I can come up with is once there is sufficient runway in the bank to feel safe.
Re: Ask HN: What is a good lead founder's salary?
#5As little as possible. You want every bit of free cash to be going back into the company.
The difference between a $75k and a $150k salary is an extra employee.
Peter Thiel has gone so far as to say that the best predictor of startup success is a low CEO salary.
Re: Ask HN: What is a good lead founder's salary?
#6Har har, nice try Steve.
In seriousness, I find this a curious thought experiment too. Obviously, minimum salary at first makes perfect sense. But let's say that there is a successful business with good cash flow -- what then? One doesn't want to appear gauche, but it's good to allow the founder to lead a more full life a little bit, same idea as allowing for liquidity events in subsequent rounds of financing, right?
Re: Ask HN: What is a good lead founder's salary?
#7before you really get financial traction (from paying users) it should be low (imho around the 50k) as you set the expectations for the rest of the team. One way to still get some cash upfront after the seedround closing is to have in your seed agreement that the company's debt twds you (the amount you invested either in cash or salary not paid) be repaid in a slump sum. You could do the same after the seed: salary should be 80k but you just get 50 and the rest will be repaid as debt owed when Series A comes in.
Re: Ask HN: What is a good lead founder's salary?
#8before you really get financial traction (from paying users) it should be low (imho around the 50k) as you set the expectations for the rest of the team. One way to still get some cash upfront after the seedround closing is to have in your seed agreement that the company's debt twds you (the amount you invested either in cash or salary not paid) be repaid in a slump sum. You could do the same after the seed: salary s…
Does this work? Don't VCs make you relinquish on that debt?
Re: Ask HN: What is a good lead founder's salary?
#9before you really get financial traction (from paying users) it should be low (imho around the 50k) as you set the expectations for the rest of the team. One way to still get some cash upfront after the seedround closing is to have in your seed agreement that the company's debt twds you (the amount you invested either in cash or salary not paid) be repaid in a slump sum. You could do the same after the seed: salary s…
Does this work? Don't VCs make you relinquish on that debt?
It should work, you can enforce this. You can see that some VCs even encourage founders to offload some of their stocks because it "destresses" the founder (a little bit of money in the bank= more zen) from worrying about money too much to refocus on the business instead.
Re: Ask HN: What is a good lead founder's salary?
#10As little as possible. You want every bit of free cash to be going back into the company. The difference between a $75k and a $150k salary is an extra employee. Peter Thiel has gone so far as to say that the best predictor of startup success is a low CEO salary.
Peter Thiel link http://techcrunch.com/2008/09/08/peter-thiel-best-predictor-...