You have revenue. You need a serious partner. And the person across the table is asking for “co-founder equity” to join a business that already works. So how much equity for a co-founder who joins after revenue is the right number? A co-founder who joins after revenue typically receives meaningfully less than a day-one co-founder
At $1M ARR, most founders should not raise VC by default. The question of bootstrap vs vc: should a founder raise at 1m arr is not a financing decision — it is a diagnostic about whether your business compounds faster with outside capital than without it, and whether you actually want the outcome venture capital
The startup founder salary at seed stage for revenue-funded founders is the deliberate amount you draw from operating cash — typically between $50,000 and $100,000 annually — anchored to a percentage of monthly recurring revenue or net cash flow (commonly 5–10% of ARR) rather than a market-rate benchmark borrowed from VC-backed companies. That distinction matters