When Should Founders Start Claiming A Salary

Depends on how purpose-driven the founders are.

Some believe it takes about five years, but I’ve met those who know they will work for the next fifteen years on their idea/company.

If you don’t have kids or other important financial obligations, you can easily live off $1500/month.

Don’t spend money on things that aren’t a necessity. Try to avoid going out to eat. Eating out can lead to a costly habit if done more than 2–3 times a week.

Try relocating to a smaller, startup friendly city such as Detroit, Baltimore or Seattle. This will lower your overall cost of living but still provide you with incubator space and local startup communities to participate in.

Founders deserve an industry average salary after they have some initial traction with customers, have product/market fit, and their salaries won’t kill their company.

Why?

They’re still figuring out the basics.

If the founders don’t have a solid traction channel or two, and strategies to improve retention KPIs, then they don’t deserve much of anything.

I’m a huge believer in doing whatever it takes to make the company profitable. If the founders believe and care enough about their vision, draining the company for vacations and music festival tickets simply cannot be an option.

The chances are that if they’re concerned with salary when starting a company, then they’re not cut out for startup life.

Purpose-driven individuals will continue pursuing change long after all the money-driven individuals have given up.

That is what makes the startup community so powerful. It has somewhat of a self filtration system.