A lot of it is misleading and tends to overcomplicate the problem.

Here’s how we paid ourselves at Loom:

No smart founder starts a company w/ the intent to pay themselves a huge salary out of the gate. If that’s you, you’re in it for the wrong reasons.

Now, how should founders pay themselves? This is best split between pre- and post-Series A:

At this stage, you shouldn’t be paying yourself anything more than you absolutely need to live & eat.

Founder salaries are earned, not given—and pre-seed is too early to be paying yourself anything beyond what you strictly need.

– 3 of us in a 2-bed apartment in San Mateo
– Used our money to cover Chipotle, gym, and rent. No salary.
– Then, we raised some capital and hired an employee
– Paid ourselves $60k each until Series A

Don’t pay yourself more than you need for basics.

This is where we gave ourselves a ‘real’ salary.

We bumped our salaries up to $100k each (in SF, this unfortunately isn’t very much).

6 months after the Series A, we increased pay to $130k each.

– Pre-Series A: Pay yourself as little as possible—the bare minimum you need to work.

– Series A: Discuss amongst co-founders & give yourselves real, albeit still modest, salaries.

– Past Series A: This depends on growth, your investors, and your co-founders.

These can usually be remedied with offering more equity to the co-founder who draws a lower salary.

Complex advice about this tends to be more of a distraction than anything else. Use your best judgment—and keep your eyes on the prize.

Growing your equity value.