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  2. Should early founders work for FREE?

Should early founders work for FREE?

Pedro Orlando
2 replies
The Starving Founder: I always say the same thing; "Sure, I’ll do it 101% — if they go first." Humor aside, I always love hearing when people ask founders to work for free, and even ask them to jump full time with no salary. What's your take? This is mine: 94.99% of good investors understand risk. They analyze, and they choose to invest or not. So do Angels. I read someone today on LinkedIn judging founders for wanting a £75K salary, which is quite low in the UK, and seemed unfair and shortsighted. A starving founder is a bad founder — it’s very bad for their mental health, bad for the team they’re leading, bad for the product, and bad for the business overall. Founders deserve to be compensated like any other employee, just as VCs are compensated for managing LPs' funds. Instead we can focus on results, effective and controlled burn using tools like EvryThink

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Pedro Orlando
and yes, founders have equity, but so do investors in most cases
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