How Do You Value Sweat Equity?

There's definitely two sides to what seems to be a bit of a loaded question.

Of course, people we're meeting with are bringing capital to the table, and it's valid to say that "well, you can't do this without our real dollars."

At the same time, it's safe to say that we (as a whole company, including our capital partners) "can't do this without our real work already invested."

Personally, I understand very clearly that there isn't a formula for a clearcut hours-to-dollars translation for the sweat equity we as founders have put into the gamble of entrepreneurship.

An investor of capital has in his or her best interest, maximizing the value of their real dollars.

Entrepreneurs have in their best interest, maximizing, or at the very least finding a fair value for their sweat equity.

There's a lot of things that we as Vino Veritas have been able to achieve by sweat equity. Several of those things we can point to right away and we know very well what those things would have cost if we hadn't done them ourselves (and thankfully had the skill sets to get them done on our own), but how do you value those things?

Do entrepreneurs count the real costs of keeping their families afloat during a startup before they start drawing salaries?

I'd love to hear from some investors and other entrepreneurs on how they've valued these intangibles in the past and what they think is fair.