
Ask HN: How much salary to draw as a founder? - anon82edf
Wanted to ask the HN community how to think about founder salaries after raising money.<p>Let&#x27;s say that a company has 2 founders.  What&#x27;s a reasonable salary after raising:<p>- $500k?<p>- $1m?<p>- $2m?<p>Or do most founders do the reverse, a &quot;bottoms up&quot; take on the minimum amount that they can pay themselves in order to sustain basic life expenses?<p>A related question is how to handle differences in founder situations (ie, one founder has enough of a savings that they don&#x27;t need a salary, or one founder doesn&#x27;t have work authorization in the US and can&#x27;t take a salary).  Do you give the non-salary founder more equity?
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whitepoplar
I would think $100-150k is reasonable. Why would you take much more than that
if you actually believe your startup will be successful? If I were an
investor, a founder taking the amounts you list would be a red flag and I
would walk away immediately.

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anon82edf
Thanks, and oops. Didn't realize I worded my question poorly. I meant "How
much salary should you take if you've raised $500k?" "How much salary should
you take if you've raised $1M?" "How much salary should you take if you've
raised $2M?"

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whitepoplar
My bad!

