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Recently got told by some founders doing a farming technology startup that nobody gets paid because "We don't even pay ourselves!", but if I would like to volun
by starbeast 8y ago
Recently got told by some founders doing a farming technology startup that nobody gets paid because "We don't even pay ourselves!", but if I would like to volunteer my time doing automation and robotics R&D, then that would be great.
I always think that you should account a startup as though you are going to be paying everyone properly even when you cannot, and then start to pay out based on a combination of need and who has the oldest outstanding credit, when money starts to appear.
If you do this, then your company accounts are actually useful documents that you can project costs off going forward and actually attract investment, rather than living in some optimistic dreamland where the numbers you have do not represent anything like the actual costs of running the business properly.
- consp 8y ago> Recently got told by some founders doing a farming technology startup that nobody gets paid because "We don't even pay ourselves!", but if I would like to volunteer my time doing automation and robotics R&D, then that would be great. So they are saying you should do slave-labor? I hope they expected to give you plenty of equity (which is cheap as the company is worthless as there is no money being made yet), otherwise it would be idiotic to expect people to work without compensation.
- imtringued 8y agoThose founders are getting paid by having 100% ownership in the business. If in 5 years the business becomes profitable then the original unpaid employees won't see any of that money. The only way this payment structure can be morally sound is by treating every unpaid employee as a founder and giving them an equal share of the company.
- AnimalMuppet 8y agoThis is called "working for venture". I have seen it (once) explicitly stated as the terms of employment.