Ultimately everything comes down to BATNA [0], but a good place to start is what you would be doing if you weren’t running a startup and how much you would earn

Ultimately everything comes down to BATNA [0], but a good place to start is what you would be doing if you weren’t running a startup and how much you would earn (after tax) if you worked as hard for someone else as an employee. This is your BATNA. An investor (in theory) could pay you a high salary as an employee to work on the business and keep all the equity. An investment is in someways equivalent to a very high interest non-recourse loan. Given this you want to take the absolutely minimum in investment you can and an extra paid in salary to founders will cause you to take more investment than you need. Personal circumstance should never play a role in what someone is paid, only their BATNA. When it comes to startups there are three forms of compensation; salary, conditions, equity. The split between these can vary, but the total should be fixed by the individual's BATNA, not how much many kids they have or student debt. Slightly off topic your compensation in any job should never be based on how much value you bring to the company, but what your BATNA is. It is up to your boss to decide if your BATNA means they want to pay you as much. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_alternative_to_a_negotiated_agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_alternative_to_a_negotiat...