How long did the speaker avoid taking personal pay from Spacegoods?

Matthew KellyEcom entrepreneur

Early Business: Pay Yourself or Reinvest?

9 Dec 2025 · 1 min

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0:45

A short YouTube discussion (by Matthew Kelly) about whether founders should pay themselves or reinvest earnings during early-stage brand building. The speaker recounts personal experience with Spacegoods — not taking personal pay for roughly 18 months to two years — and gives practical advice: avoid drawing personal pay unless the business is well-funded or profitable enough to cover it without harming growth; alternatively, founders should ensure they have outside income or savings (ideally at least a year of personal costs) before foregoing pay. The tone is pragmatic and cautionary.

Questions this video answers

Approximately 18 months to 2 years.

Chapters

Did you pay yourself during the early stages of the brand or did you keep everything in the biz? I literally. This is not an exaggeration, but I'll caveat in a second with some nuance. I didn't take a penny out of Spacegoods for the first 18 months. Maybe two years. Probably should have done, because it's like not a fair P and L if you don't pay yourself at all. I think the reality is though, one, you shouldn't take money out of the business personally unless it's well funded or profitable enough to cover that comfortably without affecting growth, at least in the first few years. And secondly, if you can't afford to do that, you should get to the point where you can afford to do it because you've either got a job and you' doing the business on the side, or you've got enough savings and liquidity, which is probably like at least a year's worth of costs, ideally more. I'd say that enables you to not have to pay yourself. Right? That's just the harsh reality. And if you don't come for money, and I definitely don't, most people don't, but a lot of founders do.