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We're pre-revenue. Our salaries would be covered by a few interested investors. Current thinking: Unless we get a strategic benefit from taking money from the investor, we shouldn't.

I'm really just curious if some data exists that shows startups that paid salaries survive longer than startups that don't.

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Any data would be heavily skewed. I had about 5 projects designed to be commercial, only one of which was registered as a "startup", and that was long after making revenue. Our salary was about $40/month up until acquisition, but does that really count as paid salaries? However we took out a lot more from the bank for personal use, including flights and equipment.

We eventually sold it because we were getting into debt and the half-assed consulting we were doing to pay the bills just didn't allow us to focus on it. It would have gone much further if we could live off the salaries.

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