‘Self-deprivation isn’t a business model’: Startup founder urges entrepreneurs to pay themselves, bootstrapped or funded

Naturally Yours founder Vinod C has urged fellow founders to pay themselves, no matter how much. The startup founder argues that even a modest salary, around ₹25,000, matters.

Building a startup, he wrote, shouldn’t mean complete financial self-punishment. Many founders proudly claim years without any personal salary whatsoever.

“Whether you are bootstrapped or funded, building a startup does not require you to financially punish yourself. I see founders proudly saying: ‘I haven’t taken a salary for 3 years.’ I don’t think that’s something we should glorify,” he wrote on LinkedIn.

At the same time, he acknowledges that cash conservation and founder sacrifice remain important principles. Salaries should remain reasonably below comparable external market rates. However, receiving zero salary for years represents something fundamentally different.

“You still have rent. You still have groceries. You still have family responsibilities. You still need to occasionally live like a normal human being,” he wrote.

Treating every personal expense as a company’s loss breeds resentment, Vinod warns. Building companies already carries substantial emotional difficulty. A modest salary isn’t about achieving comfort or excessive spending.

“A small salary isn’t about becoming comfortable. It’s about making the journey sustainable. ₹25k. ₹50k. Whatever the company can reasonably afford. Take something,” Vinod added.

Startups need founders who can stay committed for a decade. They shouldn’t burn out attempting to prove excessive personal sacrifice.

“Your startup needs a founder who can stay in the game for 10 years — not someone who burns themselves out proving how much they can sacrifice. Founder frugality is good. Founder self-deprivation isn’t a business model,” he concluded.

Naturally Yours, the startup Vinod co-founded alongside Priya Prakash, produces healthy noodles and pasta. The brand emphasises using whole grains and superfoods instead of refined flour. Their products avoid MSG, artificial flavours and preservatives entirely, they claim.

LinkedIn responds

Vinod’s LinkedIn post received many reactions. Interestingly, most of them agree with the startup founder‘s suggestion.

“Paying yourself a sustainable salary creates a clearer picture of the actual cost of running the business and makes it easier to evaluate whether the company is genuinely healthy, rather than relying on an artificially low expense base. Good financial decisions start with accurate numbers,” wrote a LinkedIn user.

“The early-stage investor mindset also needs to change. You want your founder to have enough money in the bank so they’re not worried about paying bills or about living a basic life,” commented another user.

Another user wrote, “The goal should be to build a business that is sustainable, not fragile. Because constantly operating under financial stress can eventually hurt the very business you are trying to build.”

“This is an underrated point. Frugality should extend the runway, not make the founder financially unstable. A sustainable founder is often a better asset to the business than an exhausted founder trying to prove commitment through zero salary,” came from another.