Deciding how much to pay yourself

Not sure, unless you NEED the money, I'd reinvest it in the company. If you own it, you shouldn't be thinking about how much to pay yourself - rather, you should figure out how much you need to pay your employees, and the leftover is yours to take or reinvest.

So I think it depends on how much you need to pay the employees - what's the minimum you can pay them (and keep them happy) cumulatively, and subtract that from 300k

Sometimes business owners end up making less than the employees, but if you're building value into the business, your big payoff will come later.

The main one will be the local tax laws/procedures. In some countries, you might want to take as much as possible as "dividend" and as little as possible as "income". Or, of course, vice-versa, depending on your own tax position, whether you have other income to declare, and so on.

There'll also doubtless be other considerations such as (a) how much you might want to leave in the company's account as "trading capital", and (b) whether such residue would attract corporation tax/company tax, and so on.

It's really a question for which you need professional advice from an accountant.

I like the answers so far as this is characteristic of what a small business "should" do. You reinvest in your people and in your products and in your infrastructure so you can grow over time. However, as we look at corporations today, or even "scheming" internet marketers, that is not the goal. Instead the goal is to pay oneself as much as possible in the name of capitalism and the invisible hand. I think that is all hogwash, and we need more small business owners in our society like the ones found here on Warrion Forum!!!

well you can leverage money so the more you have in your hand, the more power you have. i personally like to spend the bare minimum and reinvest profits to grow even bigger

There's some basics that you have to consider that really haven't been covered here so I'm gonna chime in.

** Taxes - You've got be prepared for that so you should be saving for it as you go.

** Emergency Funds - Again, odd things happen sometimes and you may need quick access to emergency funds. Maybe your merchant account freezes your account while they "look into things" or whatever else could happen. Regardless of what it is, once you take the step of building a business and hiring employees you have an ethical obligation to be looking out for their best interests by maintaining a certain amount of reserves. Whether that's a month's income, 3 months income, whatever - you have to assess that, but I would highly suggest having at least 1 months revenue in liquid reserves and best to mix it up across a couple of banks.

Beyond that, you have to make the decision you feel comfortable with. I know this for sure. It's your company and you should be taking a handsome profit. There is a reason that you have built a company and your employees are employees. Don't ever feel guilty about paying yourself for the company you've built.

Lastly, ask yourself this... If you were a private investor looking into your company and considering investing in it, what would you think is appropriate? I can guarantee you an investor would not expect to find a CEO throwing his lunch money back into the company...