[abeaclark]

Yes, I think this is very common.

I'm very opposed to the idea that founders need to eat ramen for 4+ years when raising venture money, and I think VCs are slowly warming up to that fact.

But, yes, you will take much less salary than at a normal engineering gig.

I think 100-150k is relatively palatable. 150-200 is possible. Above 200 almost unheard of at pre-seed / seed stage.

The irony is to hire your first engineer, you'll almost certainly need to shell out 200k+.

I also have a wife and 2 kids, so I am looking for a cofounder that can respect this and give the salary needed to live a decent life.

[jacquesm]

VCs tend to believe that market validation can be done with engineers at any level of competence so why not go cheap? Then once you have that market validation you can always decide to hire competent people to clean up the mess. That way they get to take more shots, and solve the hiring problem as well because it is far easier to hire kids than it is to hire seasoned pros who might have a bunch of demands.