Item — HN Reader

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?

2 comments

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.

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.