Daniel Gill

170 reputation

bio	website	wopsle.ca
	location	Madrid, Spain
	age
visits	member for	1 year, 3 months
	seen	Aug 28 '12 at 14:58
stats	profile views	19

I'm a Canadian-born, software engineering graduate currently living in Madrid, Spain working as an entrepreneur. I'm a consultant, a student, a dancer, a philosopher.

	170 reputation	bio	website	wopsle.ca	visits	member for	1 year, 3 months
6 badges		location	Madrid, Spain		seen	Aug 28 '12 at 14:58

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Mar 12	answered	Paying self on start-up business
Feb 8	accepted	How do you decide how much to pay yourselves, before investment, in a very small startup?
Feb 7	comment	How do you decide how much to pay yourselves, before investment, in a very small startup? All in all I'm not entirely against everyone getting equal pay, I guess I read Joel's post as not really applying in these particular circumstances, in these early days. I mean if I were creating salaries for my team, given our different time commitments, it would never occur to me to make them equal.
Feb 7	comment	How do you decide how much to pay yourselves, before investment, in a very small startup? No I'm not worried about people slacking off at all. In fact I'm amazed at how committed they've been so far given all of their other commitments. Essentially our time commitments to this particular project are split roughly 65/25/10. I suppose we're also coming from a background of offering consulting services for which we usually charge hourly rates.
Feb 7	comment	How do you decide how much to pay yourselves, before investment, in a very small startup? Sorry about the misunderstanding, I've clarified my question. We've already split equity by thirds, my issue is more with paying ourselves through profit sharing before we get an investment and can afford salaries and avoid some of the issues of profit-sharing.
Feb 7	revised	How do you decide how much to pay yourselves, before investment, in a very small startup? Updatig title to better reflect post
Feb 7	awarded	Commentator
Feb 7	comment	How do you decide how much to pay yourselves, before investment, in a very small startup? I had indeed read Joel's post and apologize for not getting my point across. I've updated my question but essentially we've already split the equity by thirds, my issue is more with paying ourselves through profit-sharing before we find investment (we're in very early talks) and can afford salaries and start building company profits. Thanks again for helping me clarify my posts =)
Feb 7	revised	How do you decide how much to pay yourselves, before investment, in a very small startup? Clarifying question based on comments
Feb 7	comment	How to share profit based on both effort and skill? You're quite right about the salaries, though given our small but growing revenue, fixed salaries are unrealistic at this point. I've raised another question about best practices when it comes to calculating value/worth in these small-startup-cirupstances.
Feb 6	answered	How to find a way to help translating the site with multi-language?
Feb 6	asked	How do you decide how much to pay yourselves, before investment, in a very small startup?
Feb 6	awarded	Scholar
Feb 6	accepted	When does the profit-sharing model break down?
Feb 6	revised	How to share profit based on both effort and skill? Clarified question based on comments
Feb 6	comment	How to share profit based on both effort and skill? @Sid You also raise some very good points about possible minimum wage violations. Mine is a Canadian corporation but I will certainly look into it ASAP. Thanks!
Feb 6	comment	How to share profit based on both effort and skill? @Sid Excellent points, thank you. Let me clarify a few things. First, no one is expected to count exactly the hours they worked - they are usually recorded once/week unless a lot of work (>~20 hrs) has been done. Second, if we were all working full time then yes, it'd be straightforward to calculate each's value. However, since the number of hours worked in any given week or month is highly variable, such an up-front approach seems impractical. Finally I would feel more comfortable with milestones if I was confident in our estimates, but I will look into it.
Feb 6	comment	When does the profit-sharing model break down? Right, so in this case I should be profit sharing a shrinking percentage of the gross margin (80% now, but hopefully shrinking quickly)
Feb 6	comment	How to share profit based on both effort and skill? Great question, people are working a variable number of hours on a weekly basis - I might put in 20 this week, but only 5 the week after. I've updated the question to clarify this.
Feb 6	revised	How to share profit based on both effort and skill? Improved question based on comments