When you start the company, you and your co-founders purchase all of the common stock at a de minimis price (and file 83(b) elections!).
The additional preferred shares you would get when this SAFE is converted will almost certainly be very very small compared to your original founder stake - to the point where it's kind of pointless to get it in the first place. Your investors wouldn't want your initial founder equity to be preferred, but they should have no problem with you putting in your own additional money alongside theirs on the same terms. Many investors like to see their founders have skin in the game.
From the founder's perspective, you're better off making a loan to the company, since you're already so rich with equity. That said, in my experience, investors don't like putting money in just to have the founders take money off the table, especially early on. With my first company, we started off with founder loans, and when we raised our first institutional round, our investors insisted we convert those loans into equity at their same price as opposed to paying ourselves back.
That's why my approach with this second company was to go straight with the SAFE off the bat for my capital infusion.
It is possible that our first company was an anomaly - and that founders putting in additional capital via loans is the standard practice and that most investors are totally cool with you getting paid back on those loans.
The additional preferred shares you would get when this SAFE is converted will almost certainly be very very small compared to your original founder stake - to the point where it's kind of pointless to get it in the first place. Your investors wouldn't want your initial founder equity to be preferred, but they should have no problem with you putting in your own additional money alongside theirs on the same terms. Many investors like to see their founders have skin in the game.
From the founder's perspective, you're better off making a loan to the company, since you're already so rich with equity. That said, in my experience, investors don't like putting money in just to have the founders take money off the table, especially early on. With my first company, we started off with founder loans, and when we raised our first institutional round, our investors insisted we convert those loans into equity at their same price as opposed to paying ourselves back.
That's why my approach with this second company was to go straight with the SAFE off the bat for my capital infusion.
It is possible that our first company was an anomaly - and that founders putting in additional capital via loans is the standard practice and that most investors are totally cool with you getting paid back on those loans.