[softwaredoug]

Maybe a simple question I didn’t see here: paying yourself a salary?

How true is it you’ll need to persist under extreme duress unable to pay yourself a salary? Relevant for us with kids / families where we provide the family’s income.

[tdullien]

I will add a section. Pay yourself a salary at the very latest the moment you've raised funding. If a VC objects to you doing that, get a different VC. You're in for the long run, and support from your family etc. is important, and you're already taking on a huge risk by pooling all your risk in one company, vs. the VC who is happily diversified.

Investors who imply you shouldn't take a salary are no bueno.

[insanitybit]

I've never once had a VC even ask about my paycheck let alone suggest I don't take one. FWIW the second you run a company you literally have to pay yourself at least minimum age, it's illegal not to. edit: Hm, apparently you can take a literal $0 paycheck. Regardless, it'd be absurd for a VC to tell you to do this imo.

[pixel_popping]

It's not true, as the founder of the company, you aren't even technically employed (unless you become a legal employee), so there is no concept of wage at all, only dividends and buying stuff directly with the company (fine within reasonable limits).

[insanitybit]

I feel like I was an employee, I don't really recall the details when I spun up my C-Corp tbh. It does seem that a CEO can take a $0 salary.

[mhluongo]

This clearly isn't true for eg a single-member LLC, and likely not true in general.

[insanitybit]

If you're raising VC money then I assume you're not an LLC. But I think you're right that the owner can take a $0 salary.

[pixel_popping]

Absolutely you should take a salary, one that don't create anxiety and making sure you aren't struggling every end of the month, you don't want a Founder that keep thinking of building another project than the one funded because he is struggling for a matter of thousands a month.

[softwaredoug]

How much of a salary do you pay yourself?

Like equivalent to what your developer salary would be? Less? More because you’re a CEO now?

I basically have minimum $ amount I would accept for “developer job I absolutely love” that I know sustains my family comfortably without much extra fun or savings. Is that a good bar?

[insanitybit]

I basically specified that I'd make the highest salary and no more than that. It felt like a fair policy at least, it took a lot of guess work out of it. If I wanted to bring someone in at X00K, I had to make X00K.

I started off making significantly less than I did as a dev (~30-50k + I had spent months with 0 salary before raising), within ~2 years I was making a bit more and I capped out around there.

[tdullien]

Yes. Usually, the VCs will want you to not take an extravagant salary, but a solid family with which you can keep your family comfortable. And that's normally the right bar.

And if there are liquidity pressures a few years into the process, and you have traction at Series B or C - don't hesitate to think about a small secondary.

[tptacek]

I'm not sure austerity wages for founders are really a thing anymore. Serious investors understand that team turnover is as or more scary than fiscal drama.

There was a longstanding "ramen profitable" ethos on HN, but part of that is rooted in a much older set of YC deal terms and lower expectations for seed rounds. But YC is now one of the principal components of all tech startup funding, the standard terms are much better, syndicated seed rounds have gotten pretty big; I think you're expected not to be silly about comp, but I don't think people are looking for you to signal commitment or virtue or asceticism with your comp package.

If you can't pay yourself a real comp package, something is probably wrong with your business.

[thepeoplebook]

A stable home life is a prerequisite for focused startup work; otherwise day-to-day worries take up too much attention.

[doc_ick]

Agreed, you need to have a clear mind and not too large of a sum to focus on work; for example making an Oreo pie.