Why I Paid Myself €2,400 a Month for Four Years as a Founder

When my co-founder and I started our accounting software company in Lyon in 2016, we agreed on a founder salary of €2,400 gross per month each. That was roughly what a junior developer in Lyon earned at the time. We kept it there for four years, through our seed round, through our first hires, and through a period when some of our employees earned almost twice as much as we did.

I sold the company in 2021. People often ask me whether the low salary was a smart decision. My honest answer is: mostly yes, with some costs that I did not see coming.

Why we chose that number

The logic was simple. Every euro we did not pay ourselves was a euro of runway. With the two of us at €2,400 instead of a more normal €5,000, we saved around €62,000 a year in salary, and more once you add French employer charges, which are significant. That bought us roughly five extra months of runway in the early days, and those five months were when we found our first real customers.

There was also a signal. Investors liked it. Our first employees liked it too, I think, because it showed we were not building a comfortable job for ourselves.

What it cost me personally

My partner and I had our first child in 2018. On €2,400 gross, after charges and tax, my take-home pay was a little under €1,900 a month. Lyon is not Paris, but it is not cheap either. We managed because my partner earned more than I did and because we lived in a small apartment far from the center.

I underestimated the stress. Not dramatic stress, just a constant low hum. Saying no to a weekend away. Checking prices at the supermarket. Feeling slightly guilty every time I bought a book. Over four years, that hum wears on a marriage, even a strong one.

The pension gap

The cost I truly did not think about was retirement. In France, pension rights are tied to your declared salary. Four years at a low salary in my late thirties means fewer contribution quarters at a meaningful level. It is not catastrophic, but when I sat down with a financial planner after the sale, it was a visible dent.

What I would do differently

If I started again, I would still pay myself less than market rate. But I would set rules:

• Review the salary every time we raise money. We raised twice and never touched it, out of habit.
• Pay at least what the most senior employee earns minus a fixed discount. Being paid less than your own team for years creates odd dynamics.
• Talk openly with my partner about the real number. We did, but only after the first year, which was too late.

Was it worth it

The exit was modest, smaller than the money we had raised, but it gave us both enough to reset. On balance the low salary helped the company survive its first two years, and I cannot imagine us reaching the sale without that extra runway.

I just wish I had treated my own salary as a business decision to revisit, not a badge of honour to keep. Frugality in year one is discipline. Frugality in year four, when the company could afford better, was mostly stubbornness.