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.
A few years ago, getting a VC check was the ultimate shortcut. The fastest way to scale. The signal that you'd "made it." But with AI is a little bit different.
Global VC funding declined 30% in Q1 2024. One of the lowest quarters since 2018. And bootstrapped startups are quietly catching up. Recent data shows bootstrapped businesses are growing as fast as VC-backed startups, while spending only about one-quarter as much on customer acquisition.
I've removed some apps because of the privacy setting requirements e.g. access to contacts when I don't feel its an essential part of enjoying the app's features. Curious to see the results.
For over a week, the wider Product Hunt community has been chiming in with their two cents in the discussion about where to draw the line between which product features should be free and which should require payment.
Just yesterday on X, a post started trending about a tool with 35,000+ users, but only just over 1,300 paying customers. The founder was asking the community for advice on how to increase conversions.
These cute and furry creatures can sometimes tire people a lot. What are the issues that you have the most difficulty with regarding pet care and that you think there should be a solution?
The AI gold rush feels like it rewards teams who ship fast. Many teams are working on a 9-9-6 (9am-9pm, 6 days a week) schedule to keep up with the state of the art breakthroughs and features. Does this give teams an edge against their competition or is this slowly burning teams out. If you're building in the AI space, I would love to hear what your take is:
What works for your team and do you follow the 996 schedule?
Did following a 996 culture create more bugs or actually lead to breakthroughs and push you ahead of your competition?
How would you balance your life outside of work if you followed this schedule?
Making this post to raise awareness and ideally find a middle ground for teams that are currently growing and trying to keep up with the competition
I am a hardcore music lover and love to listen to it while working. But sometimes, I do feel like, listening to music impacts my productivity. Has anyone experienced the same? Do you have any tips to share, to me and to the community in general?
The origin stories are always the fascinating ones. So did you start yours at a garage or a dorm? (just kidding) And why did you start your startup in the first place? Let the PH community know about your beautiful journey.
