

Ask HN: Compensating for uneven hours among founders? - bpfh

Background: we're a small bootstrapped startup, with four founders with equal equity share. We're about half a year into the game, still feeding off of everyone's personal runway and paying no salary, but this is looking to change soon (which is brilliant!)<p>Due to differences in personal life situations, we are seeing that some of us voluntarily seem to be putting in more hours than others. Everyone is carrying their weight, so this is not a problem, but depending on a situation, individuals are finding themselves working through weekends, mainly due to their own volition and the fact that we're pretty thrilled about what we're doing. For some of us, facts of personal life simply do not allow this.<p>We've agreed on equal salary among the founders, but there's a growing suspicion that we should compensate for the uneven hours somehow, and we're exploring different options for that.<p>Does the HN community have positive/negative precedents on how to handle uneven hours among founders? An easy way out would be to start compensating for overtime in salary; however, this brings along issues like time tracking, which we're a little uneasy with.<p>Personally, I have been wondering if a more results-based approach would be more appropriate; after all, in these times I would encourage us to work smart rather than to work hard. Sales commissions (even among founders) could be one way.<p>Any thoughts? We're worried that if we somehow do not deal with this, it might lead to friction later. Any input is much appreciated.
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shail
I think the solution to this problem should be more human than metric. I have
a human solution to it. It might not click with everyone. tl;dr - be around as
much as you can, it shouldn't be that one guy is putting lots of extra hours
all alone all the time.

I feel that folks who are not able to spend extra time due to family/life's
other commitments should (few times a week) just be around the person who is
actually spending extra time. So basically, they may or may not really work on
their stuff but being around to share ideas, celebrating small milestones
matter a lot. This also shows they care and ultimately thats what matters.

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brudgers
_"Everyone is carrying their weight"_

So why invent a reason for drama?

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bpfh
According to some founder stories we've heard, uneven workload is one of the
major causes of drama. Colour us pre-emptive.

