Waseem Daher

Waseem Daher

PilotPilot
Cofounder, Pilot.com
403 points

Forums

Pilotp/pilotWaseem Daher

10mo ago

Founder Salary Confessions: How Much Should You Pay Yourself? AMA with 3x Founder Waseem Daher

Hey Product Hunt! I'm Waseem Daher, co-founder of Pilot, the largest startup-focused accounting company in the US. I'm a 3x founder (my previous ventures were acquired by Oracle and Dropbox) who's raised over $120M from Sequoia, Stripe, Jeff Bezos, and more.

Today we're releasing our 2025 Founder Salary Report with data from 1,800+ founders, and the findings might surprise you:

  • Founder salaries dropped 43% in the past year

  • AI founders are bucking the trend (paying themselves more)

  • Bootstrapped companies jumped 57%

  • Only 5.4% of founders pay themselves nothing (down from 9% last year)

We founders talk endlessly about burn rates, runway, and valuations but no one talks about what they pay themselves. It's time to change that.

Pilotp/pilotWaseem Daher

10mo ago

Founder Salary Confessions: How Much Should You Pay Yourself? AMA with 3x Founder Waseem Daher

Hey Product Hunt! I'm Waseem Daher, co-founder of Pilot, the largest startup-focused accounting company in the US. I'm a 3x founder (my previous ventures were acquired by Oracle and Dropbox) who's raised over $120M from Sequoia, Stripe, Jeff Bezos, and more.

Today we're releasing our 2025 Founder Salary Report with data from 1,800+ founders, and the findings might surprise you:

  • Founder salaries dropped 43% in the past year

  • AI founders are bucking the trend (paying themselves more)

  • Bootstrapped companies jumped 57%

  • Only 5.4% of founders pay themselves nothing (down from 9% last year)

We founders talk endlessly about burn rates, runway, and valuations but no one talks about what they pay themselves. It's time to change that.

Pilotp/pilotWaseem Daher

10mo ago

Founder Salary Confessions: How Much Should You Pay Yourself? AMA with 3x Founder Waseem Daher

Hey Product Hunt! I'm Waseem Daher, co-founder of Pilot, the largest startup-focused accounting company in the US. I'm a 3x founder (my previous ventures were acquired by Oracle and Dropbox) who's raised over $120M from Sequoia, Stripe, Jeff Bezos, and more.

Today we're releasing our 2025 Founder Salary Report with data from 1,800+ founders, and the findings might surprise you:

  • Founder salaries dropped 43% in the past year

  • AI founders are bucking the trend (paying themselves more)

  • Bootstrapped companies jumped 57%

  • Only 5.4% of founders pay themselves nothing (down from 9% last year)

We founders talk endlessly about burn rates, runway, and valuations but no one talks about what they pay themselves. It's time to change that.

Waseem Daher

6yr ago

Pilot R&D Tax Credit - Save your business up to $250k with the R&D tax credit

The R&D credit lets startups save a significant amount on payroll tax. But the credit is a huge pain to claim—until now. Pilot handles the full claims process for you, which means your business can potentially save up to $250k in tax.