Ask HN: How to give myself a raise?

[UnknownCowboy]

Longtime HN'er posting anonymously. I run a growing, buzz-worthy web startup. We've raised a few million from a combo of angels and VCs.

I'm paying myself well below market rates ($55k in nyc). I realize that this is standard, but I'm having trouble living reasonably (it's nyc, after all) and would very much like to give myself a $10k raise.

The thing is, I feel bad asking my board for this. I've been putting in insane hours (they know this) and we've been getting good traction, but haven't hit any grand slams yet. And I feel like when I raised money from them my salary was an implicit part of the 'offer' of the company.

So, my question: what's the protocol regarding a founder CEO asking for a raise? Do most not get one till a liquidity event? Or is a certain % per year standard? Is this something I should push the board on, or is the normal protocol for the board to suggest it to me when the deem appropriate? Any wise words would be appreciated...

[patio11]

With the proviso that I know very little about dealing with boards: if you have millions, and you're growing quickly, and there is a problem which is consuming the CEO's time which can be killed dead by signing a check for $15,000, what would your board tell you to do? (Would you even talk to the board about that? Would they expect you to?)

I'm thinking the conversation goes something like this: you summon your inner hedge fund trader, and tell the board "Listen, this city is effing expensive. My salary is effing ludicrous. The wife/kids/potted plants are complaining and this is hurting my performance. I'm giving myself a raise from 'ludicrously underpaid' to 'severely underpaid', so that I can focus on making us all rich rather than deal with the household budget. Any objections? Good, next order of business..."

[kls]

You gave up a big chunk of your company (I am assuming). One of the reasons that you did so was to ease the pain of bootstrapping. Now I am not saying that you should be paying yourself 200K a year out of the gate, but I do not think anything under 100K is unreasonable. In NYC 100k developer jobs are a dime a dozen. Personally, that is what I would be pushing the board for, you gave up a piece of your company to not have to rough it, you should not feel guilty about feeling that way, you sold some of your company for money. On the flip side, don't expect the board to come to you about it, they are not going to initiate conversations about giving you more money. You will have to do that.

[fezzl → kls]

"but I do not think anything under 100K is unreasonable."

I wish I had something else to contribute, but I think you misused a double-negative there.

[kls → fezzl]

I don't see where but I will give you that grammar, writing and English where not my strong suits when I was in school. I have dyslexia, so I will assume that it is an error on my part.

In saying that, what I do have a mastery of is logic. and if I break it out logically, I do not see how it becomes a double negative.

So for example, if I say: I do not think x is unreasonable.

(I do not think) flips the meaning of (x is unreasonable) and makes it !(x is unreasonable) or (x is reasonable) so conditional:

if (x < 100,000 !(x is unreasonable)) else (x is unreasonable).

it can be also be expressed as:

if (x < 100,000 (x is reasonable)) else !(x is reasonable)

Works for me! even if it is incorrect English, it is correct logic.

[RiderOfGiraffes → kls]

Your logic is impeccable. The problem is that most idiomatic English usage is very peccable. Many people will misunderstand you, even if you are logically unassailable.

You meant that anything under 100K seems reasonable to you. I would recommend that where possible you should stick to the positive form, as it is less likely to be misunderstood.

I think that's a shame, but it's my experience.

[fezzl → kls]

Your logic is correct.

It really depends on what you meant: whether you wanted to mean that 100K is 1) reasonable or 2) unreasonable.

You said: "Now I am not saying that you should be paying yourself 200K a year out of the gate, but I do not think anything under 100K is unreasonable."

"Now I am not saying that you should be paying yourself 200K a year out of the gate" --- (1)

"but" --- (2)

"I do not think anything under 100K is unreasonable." --- (3)

(1) implies that you think that he shouldn't overpay himself, and you followed that with a "but" (i.e. (2)), which suggested that the ensuing clause was going to be of the "you shouldn't underpay yourself either" nature/implication.

Naturally, the next clause should be explaining what exactly you meant by underpaying. So that means you should either be setting a lower bound and saying that it's reasonable, i.e. "I think that anything above 100K is reasonable," or be setting an upper bound and saying that it's unreasonable, i.e. "I think that anything below 100K is unreasonable".

[rick_2047 → kls]

Bravo for logical reasoning.

[petervandijck]

Take more than 10K.

1. If you ask for 10K, your investors may think that's just not much, you can probably do without.

2. If you ask for 10K, you'll have to ask again in 6 months.

In other words, go from 55k to 85k. Remember that, if things keep going ok/good, you'll want to go to 100+k in another 6 months/1 year.

[dnsworks → petervandijck]

This is silly. Go to your board, and tell them that you're raising your salary to $100k. Have a good list of reasons ready, but don't offer, and for bob's sake, don't ask. If you're the CEO and founder, walk in like you own the place and set your own terms, because you do own the place.