Congratulations, you just raised money! Here are some things you should consider doing right now:
Make sure you’re getting a good interest rate
You now have a bunch of cash in the bank, but by default you’ll get 0% interest on it. But 4% of $3m is an additional $120k/yr—not bad, right? You just have to get in touch with your bank to enable it. Instructions here.
Consider whether you should adjust founder salaries
This might be a good time to adjust your salary. Here’s our report on “what founders are paying themselves” by amount raised and geography.
This is a bit of a philosophical take, but in case it helps you think through this: there’s no magic number for what you as a founder should pay yourself. Market data matters, but ultimately the question is a highly personal one: what salary is needed to allow you to focus your efforts on making the business successful?
In particular: if your salary is too low, you’ll spend a bunch of time and energy stressing out how to make your rent payment or how to cover your childcare costs—and all that stress distracts you from making your business successful.
So in short, the correct amount to pay yourself (company funds permitting) is not a specific dollar amount: it’s enough so that you can focus all of your energy on creating a successful company
And I think it’s very reasonable to ask: does this financing change what I should be doing here?
Look into the R&D credit
This has already been fairly heavily advertised, so I suspect you’re already aware of it—but if you’re not, definitely check out the R&D credit. It’s uniquely useful because it offsets payroll tax, which you have to pay any time you employ anyone. Claiming it is very popular among tech startups, and if you’re eligible, we recommend it.
Join our Slack group for founders
Pilot’s founders run a slack group for VC-backed founders—it currently has a few hundred CEOs in it. It’s low-traffic/low-commitment, but really good for “Hey, what are other people doing for XYZ?” sorts of questions. If you’re interested, you can apply to join here.
Celebrate… and get back to work
Fundraising isn’t success—it’s a means to an end. Savor the milestone and get back to work.
Let us know how we can help
Seriously. Two options come to mind:
- Upleveling your accounting. Of course we had to include this—but if you’re still DIY or if you feel like you could be getting more from your current provider, please do take a look at Pilot. We work with literally thousands of high-growth startups—and we’re a startup ourselves (backed by Sequoia, Stripe, and Jeff Bezos), so we definitely get it.
- Office hours. Our founders do a few “office hours” sessions every week, so if you have any general startup advice questions, get in touch and we can include you in the next batch. (Our CFO Services team does something similar as well, if you have finance-specific questions.)