| Hey tptacek, didn't mean any offense and hope none was taken. > Are you willing to live on ramen for years? Good on you. Really. Indeed I was (during grad school), and am, as are many/most YC alumni. And I hesitate to mention this as it's such conventional wisdom -- but as for self-funding, absolutely one should bootstrap for as long as possible before accepting outside investment. To further belabor the obvious, pay yourself well when the company is profitable, or even better wait for exit. Here's Peter Thiel on the same topic: ---- http://techcrunch.com/2008/09/08/peter-thiel-best-predictor-... The lower the CEO salary, the more likely it is to succeed. The CEO’s salary sets a cap for everyone else. If it is set at a high level, you end up burning a whole lot more money. It aligns his interest with the equity holders. But [beyond that], it goes to whether the mission of the company is to build something new or just collect paychecks. In practice we have found that if you only ask one question, ask that. |
I think many teams find that by the time they've scaled headcount even to a minimal degree, the founder's take-home pay is no longer a major budget concern. At least, that's how I've seen it rationalized.
(Don't ever worry about offending me, but thanks for the concern.)