Founder Pay - How Much?

How much should CPG founders pay themselves?

There are lots of opinions here, but here's mine:

Cash is oxygen for your business.

You need growth in revenue volume, along with decent gross profit, to eventually overcome your initial fixed costs.

Those fixed costs include salaries.

Paying yourself too much, or too early, reduces that oxygen supply.

Shortens your runway.

As a founder, if you're seeking investment, your message is:

A dollar invested in my business is worth more than a dollar invested elsewhere.

If that's true, don't you want most of your OWN dollars in the business?

As the CEO of a funded company, of course you should earn a salary.

But don't allow that to suffocate your business.

Investors are most interested in results - will the $XM I'm giving you actually get you to the $XXM you're promising to achieve?

The salary needs to make sense for the level of expected revenue.

As an extreme example - a product-based company with revenues of $500K can't pay their CEO $150K - the math doesn't work.

Ensure your business will have enough oxygen for the runway you need to accomplish the results you're promising and that the salary is reasonable for your company's size.