Once a startup closes its seed round, the existential question looms: how much should the founders and their earliest hires get paid? Because, you know, there’s nothing quite like spending investor money to answer life’s big questions.
Kruze Consulting, a CPA firm specializing in venture-backed startups, decided to crunch the numbers. Analyzing payroll data from over 450 seed-stage startups (real payroll records, not those pesky surveys filled out during coffee breaks), they uncovered some enlightening—and eyebrow-raising—insights.
Who Gets Paid What?
Let’s get to the juicy part. Here’s how seed-stage startup executives are cashing in:
- CEO: $132,000 (Oh, the heavy crown comes with such modest compensation.)
- CTO: $134,000 (All that technical brilliance for just two grand more?)
- COO/Operations: $135,000 (Wait, operations? What operations?)
- Product/CPO: $149,000 (Because what’s a startup without a shiny new product to burn through cash on?)
The COO/operations salary, in particular, raised some venture capitalist eyebrows. Is it a red flag? Maybe. Or perhaps it’s just a clever way to tell investors, “Look, we’ve got an extra co-founder, and we’re paying them more than the CEO. Innovative, right?”
What About Engineers?
Here’s where it gets really fun. The actual workhorses of a startup, senior engineers, earn far more than the founders who hired them. In the Bay Area, these tech wizards rake in $180,000 to $235,000, while even their less experienced peers command $75,000 to $105,000. Outside the Bay Area? Those figures drop a little, but not enough to bring anyone sympathy.
For comparison, the CEO salary—yes, the one carrying the “visionary” burden—is roughly half that of a seasoned engineer. Apparently, vision doesn’t come cheap, but it comes cheaper than JavaScript.
The Climb to Comfortable
If you’re a founder lamenting your meager six-figure salary, don’t worry—it gets better. By Series A, founders bump their pay to $183,000, and by Series B, it skyrockets to $218,000. This remarkable generosity towards themselves ensures founders can finally keep up with the engineers they hired two rounds ago.
The Sarcasm, Served Warm
In most industries, earning $132,000 for building a company from scratch might sound like an excellent deal. In the startup world, though, it’s practically martyrdom. “How do they even survive on that?” we imagine outsiders whispering in shock. Meanwhile, across the proverbial street, senior engineers earning $235,000 are probably enjoying free kombucha on tap, while the CEO is still deciding whether that extra avocado toast is worth the splurge.
And let’s not forget other professions. A COO in a Fortune 500 company earns millions managing global operations, while in a seed-stage startup, a COO gets $135,000 to, well, manage a team of 10 people and a Slack channel.
In the end, the seed-stage startup is a world unto itself—a place where salaries are modest (but also not), roles are essential (but vaguely defined), and everyone seems to agree: it’s all worth it for the equity. Because nothing screams “financial prudence” like working yourself to the bone for a payout that might come in a decade.
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