$132K – $149K, here’s what seed-stage founders pay early employees, based on data

Once a startup has raised its seed round, the perennial question becomes how much should the founders pay themselves and their first few employees? Kruze Consulting, a CPA firm that specializes in venture-backed startups, recently analyzed average salary ranges for over 450 seed-stage startups and shared that data with TechCrunch. The following averages are based on actual payroll records, not survey responses, Kruze says. Perhaps unsurprisingly, technical engineering/product positions tend to be paid more than the CEO. One surprise is that a person with a title of COO/operations also tends to be paid even higher, on average. That’s eyebrow-raising because an operations/COO title could signal to your seed VCs a third co-founder without a well-defined role — there are not a lot of operations to run in a tiny company. Even having that role can be a red flag on spending/budget to early-stage VCs.