If the pay is not high enough for your needs, you shouldn't bother looking at startups, or at least you shouldn't be looking at pre-series-A startups. Everybody

If the pay is not high enough for your needs, you shouldn't bother looking at startups, or at least you shouldn't be looking at pre-series-A startups. Everybody has their own motivations for why they choose to work somewhere, and money/compensation isn't always the top consideration. At early-stage startups where money is tight, salary will usually be difficult to negotiate too much, but equity can be negotiated more easily.