How do you keep your startup team motivated when money runs out?
Keeping a startup team motivated without money is one of the hardest challenges I’ve faced, harder than growth or sales.
I’ve worked on a few SaaS products with… let’s just say, not-ideal budgets. And honestly, the hardest part wasn’t traction. It was morale.
At one point, we couldn’t even guarantee stability, let alone bonuses. What kept us going?
Let me share what worked for us?
Being transparent.
Celebrating small wins.
Giving people ownership instead of micromanaging.
And remind everyone what we are building and why it matters.
You don’t need a big budget to build belief.
Curious to hear from others, how do you keep your team going when there’s more vision than money?
Replies
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Uf. From my own experience, the team must share the same vision and ambition to succeed.
When we started, I stress "STARTED", we didn't expect much, nor earning money, so we did things for free.
But as the project grows, you need to onboard people who are not so interested, but their main motivation is to have money = job. As money runs out, they need to somehow pay bills. So understandable, they moved on somewhere else.
I would recommend creating a "safety net" from the side of the side when the situation is better – a financial fund for such cases.
@busmark_w_nika Yeah, it really changes once money enters the picture. I have seen how hard it is to keep that early passion alive when team members start worrying about stability. Maybe the key is finding a balance, like keeping the core team super lean and building that safety net slowly without burning out.
Been there, and honestly, transparency was everything for us too. When we were building a previous startup with basically no runway, I found that people stayed motivated when they could see the real impact of their work - like when a user said our platform saved them hours every week. Sometimes that feedback hits harder than a bonus check. The ownership piece is huge too - nothing beats seeing someone take full pride in a feature they built from scratch.