[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Signs as an Employee of a Failing Startup?
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Ask HN: Signs as an Employee of a Failing Startup?
recently started a new job at a start up. while there seems to be a
lot of domain specific knowledge, good developers, and leaders,
there isn't really a ton of technical know-how so I've been having
to relearn some of the lessons learned in my more corporate roles.
I've been having to redo work in the last month - even after
getting it reviewed and checking in on if this is how the work is
supposed to be done. I try to do it to satisfy my direct manager,
but they seem very disorganized and it doesn't make me feel very
confident in the company. there were also laws passed that seem to
be our current business model. are these signs of a failing start
up or something else?
Author : hnjb
Score : 13 points
Date : 2022-01-14 21:21 UTC (1 hours ago)
| [deleted]
| Leary wrote:
| Is what you're working on core to the startup's business? Any
| idea on what the burn rate of your company is? Any problems
| getting revenue or further funding?
| version_five wrote:
| I don't think there can be a checklist for things to look for,
| same as there can't be a checklist for a startup that will
| succeed.
|
| You should really base your decision on your alignment with the
| mission and fit with the people there. That sounds corny but is
| probably the best formula for success.
|
| Especially if you're an engineer, things that seem ridiculous to
| you could actually end up getting the traction needed for a
| successful exit (source: I'm an engineer who has seen lots of
| things I thought were ridiculous pay off and lots of things I
| thought were important lead nowhere).
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| I've noticed that successful companies don't have this so-called
| "steady" growth everyone looks for. Early on it comes in bursts,
| and it's very clear because sales growth suddenly jumps up and
| it's hard to find that new high until it eventually does occur.
| It's really hard to survive. You either wildly succeed, or you
| never get off the ground. I've never seen it any other way.
|
| Lifestyle or consultancy businesses are entirely different. You
| can be alive forever and just have good and bad years.
|
| A failing startup will commonly not have a growth strategy which
| usually looks like some form of marketing, cold calling, and
| penetration by industry events, these are the top three entry
| points I've seen over the years for growing companies small and
| large, or have a tremendous cost of acquisition and low retention
| rate. You can get this from startups that share sales metrics
| with the wider company.
|
| There are absolutely signs. Don't listen to people who say there
| aren't. You'll know. Your sales teams will know the most because
| they'll know all of the telltale metrics from having seen them
| more frequently than you.
| Kranar wrote:
| It's fruitless to discuss signs of a failing startup since almost
| all tech startups fail. They fail with good management and bad
| management, good product and bad product, good developers and bad
| developers. If there was a way to know that a startup wasn't
| going to fail it would almost certainly not be a startup.
|
| If you're worried about failure then work at a more established
| company with a lower risk profile. If you're going to work at a
| startup then don't worry so much about whether it will succeed or
| fail, but rather whether you enjoy working there, you like your
| team, you like what you're learning and that you're getting
| compensated reasonably well. Anyone on HN that thinks they can
| predict whether your startup will fail based on 6 sentences you
| wrote about it is just blowing hot air.
|
| Just as an example, I've been running my company for close to 15
| years now and almost everything people are saying in these
| comments about failure could easily apply to me, and yet my
| company still exists and is going strong. I only promote from
| within the company, I never hire external management and it's a
| principle I strongly value. Apparently that makes my company a
| failure.
|
| I always make it clear to everyone I hire before they accept that
| our business is risky and our company can go bankrupt tomorrow
| without warning. I never pretend or exert any kind of false sense
| of confidence and on the contrary I'd rather people understand
| and appreciate the risky nature of this business. Apparently that
| makes my company a failure.
|
| My company pivots all the time on stuff and we are always looking
| for new and interesting projects to work on. We've explored
| crypto lending, decentralized poker, VR, prediction markets, and
| a social dining platform, all of which have failed but were
| incredibly worthwhile experiences that everyone had a good time
| working on and learning from. Apparently that makes my company a
| failure.
|
| My company is big on tooling, from formal verification methods,
| to custom tooling developed for our in-house UX/UI team to
| prototype complex financial interfaces and data visualizations,
| to highly sophisticated performance monitoring and alerting
| tools, we even developed our own functional reactive programming
| language. Apparently that makes my company a failure.
|
| With that said, maybe my company is a failure and next week I'll
| be the one to find out... but it's been a great 15 years for me
| and everyone I work with, we all get paid well, we get a chance
| to work on things we like with people we respect and I wouldn't
| have had it any other way, failure or not.
| deanmoriarty wrote:
| > I only promote from within the company, I never hire external
| management and it's a principle I strongly value.
|
| I won't comment on the others but this specific point is huge,
| and I have a lot of respect for leaders who decide to follow
| this path. On average it ends up being incredible for morale.
|
| It has always been rather demotivating doing hard work at a
| company just to see external leaders and managers come in, take
| all the credit or make decisions without full context. In one
| instance I've seen it nearly destroyed the company: a director
| was hired who started imposing silly decisions that caused
| multiple people to get severely pissed off. Only after many
| months and several key people leaving (founding engineers with
| immense knowledge of the business) the executives woke up and
| fired this person. What a wasteful sacrifice of talent.
|
| In my ideal company, everyone on the technical side would need
| to join as senior engineer, and be promoted from there. Of
| course relevant talent will be lost because some effective
| leaders will not be willing to go through the gauntlet, but
| it's a fair price to pay nonetheless. I assert that a good
| subset of engineers who deeply know the systems of a company
| make for excellent leaders.
| fizzyfizz wrote:
| There are lots of reasons why a startup might fail. Technical
| competence and disorganization are way, way down the list.
|
| In my experience engineering at successful startups is often
| subpar. A successful startup engineer is above all productive,
| flexible, creative, and ships often. Their code gets the job done
| but probably wouldn't pass muster at a corporate job.
|
| Management at startups is always flailing about. If things aren't
| working, then you should be taking random stabs at doing
| something else. If things are working, you probably have many
| more problems you did yesterday and you should feel under-
| resourced.
|
| Your original post mentions something about laws being passed to
| outlaw your business model. That seems much more concerning.
|
| But in any case, here's what I'd look for
|
| * Is there a market for the thing we're doing?
|
| * Is our iteration fast and are we learning from what we do?
|
| * Do I trust the people I work with? Do they seem ethical?
|
| Even if someone here wants to oppose the idea of an ethical
| business, consider that there are about 10,000 ways to get
| screwed over as a startup employee and you want the people in
| charge to resist doing those things to you.
| muzani wrote:
| Chaos is more often signs of a suceeding startup than a failing
| one. Often the demand is too high and tech debt is taken on.
|
| Pivoting is not bad either, it's practically the job scope of
| early stage startups.
|
| The main symptom I've seen of failing startups is trying to look
| good. e.g. you're asked to buy products and reimbursed for it,
| adding features of no value to customers but valuable to
| investors.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| > are these signs of a failing start up
|
| Wrong question.
|
| "Are these a signs of a company where I would waste my time and
| wouldn't learn anything substantial" or "Are these a signs of
| disorganized management which wouldn't help me [or even would
| harm my development]" are slightly better ones.
|
| Of course you should always adjust your answers on your
| compensation and requirements.
| georgesequeira wrote:
| Working at a company where middle-management is incompetent is
| common. Particularly in startups where they promote from within
| or the leaders haven't seen good management before. That being
| said, if you aren't getting your best work done, it's probably
| best to leave.
|
| That being said, regarding whether or not your startup is
| failing, its hard to know (even from the inside). But one thing
| that is important is whether the leaders of your company think
| they are failing. That is easier to notice and is a shittier
| experience than just if your company is failing but your leaders
| see a way out. If your leaders think they are going to die, the
| easiest way to know is when the free stuff gets taken away (swag,
| coffees, expensed lunches). The other is if projects keep getting
| killed and new ones that get promoted as the answer to all the
| problems ... sign that they don't know what they're doing.
| sirspacey wrote:
| Wait... there are startups where projects aren't silver bullets
| that never work out?!
|
| I've also found that to be a reliable sign of a zombie startup
| - might not fail, but constant lack of success is grating too.
| deepsquirrelnet wrote:
| The first problem is that you don't know what failure is at all
| levels of the company -- especially management.
|
| Whole businesses are spawned, funded and collapsed where
| investors and founders make a good buck, despite the business
| never turning a profit or standing on its own legs. To some, that
| is still a success...
|
| Your job is to try and figure out how the people above you view
| success and see if it aligns with your version.
| belval wrote:
| I am young and have only been at one startup so with a sample
| size of N=1 here is my "possibly in trouble startup indicator".
|
| - Unclear go to market strategy/pivoted often (>3 times)
|
| - Strongly established politics and structure even though the
| company is young (<2 years)
|
| - Lots of work being done that does not relate to a specific
| product (if half the employees are working on tooling that's a
| bad sign)
|
| Your description does not fit the above criteria, I would expect
| a startup to be somewhat disorganized and having lot of domain-
| specific knowledge is good. As for regulations that might lead to
| a pivot but it's not necessarily terrible.
|
| Keep in mind that my answer is based on a very limited
| description so it's most likely entirely wrong.
| muzani wrote:
| Pivoting and no strategy is practically the job description for
| a seed stage and possibly Series A startup. The others don't
| sound good though.
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