[HN Gopher] Want to found a startup? Work at one first
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Want to found a startup? Work at one first
Author : lawrjone
Score : 273 points
Date : 2022-08-31 10:35 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.lawrencejones.dev)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.lawrencejones.dev)
| papito wrote:
| That's it?
|
| Most startups don't know what they are doing, so first-time
| starter-uppers get the wrong idea. Instead of moving at a steady
| pace without burnout, the lesson they can take away from it is
| that startups are all about heroics and working until 2AM while
| chugging tequila.
|
| There are a lot of clowns out there with a serious case of
| Dunning-Kruger who run these companies (usually into the ground).
| whispersnow wrote:
| I have worked at a startup, joined the founding team of a
| startup, as well as consulted at a VC before. IMHO, I don't feel
| that it is a pre-requisite to work at one first. Though there are
| spirits a successful founder needs to have, but "working" at a
| startup is completely different from "owning" it. The mindset,
| pressure, things to handle, are at totally different levels for
| the founder. And that's not necessary being gained/build by
| working at a startup.
| lawrjone wrote:
| Author here!
|
| I've been speaking with friends about starting their own
| companies recently, and one thing it's made me consider is what
| experience would best prepare you to become a founder.
|
| Having spent my career in start-ups, the idea of founding my own
| without first working at one and seeing what works terrifies me.
| There's so much stuff you only learn from doing it over and over
| again, at different company sizes, and seeing how it
| works/doesn't.
|
| I thought it might be useful to share some of that experience, if
| only to justify why joining an existing start-up can be an
| amazing education for anyone wanting to start their own. As
| opposed to, for example, joining an existing big-corp or jumping
| straight into start-ups without that experience.
| iddan wrote:
| I give this advice to many aspiring founders I meet and I
| practice it myself. Have been working in multiple early-stage and
| growth startups at different stages with the goal of becoming a
| founder one day including right now at FlyCode (S22)
| cletus wrote:
| I haven't worked at a startup. I have worked at two FAANGs (F+G).
| So I can't speak to the actual experience of this but when
| considering options, startups, particuarly very early stage
| startups, seemed like such a terrible value proposition.
|
| There could be qualitative benefits and I think this is why a lot
| of people go this route. Things like less structure and a bigger
| feeling of impact.
|
| But your equity is most likely going to be worth exactly $0 and
| the upside isn't really that high. For every Craig Silverstein
| there are 100,000 people who got nothing. Look back at any HN
| thread where people are asked about their exits (as an employee)
| and it's sobering. $10-20k after 4-5 years is disturbingly
| common.
|
| A first employee if they have a lot of pull might get what? 0.5%?
| Maybe 1% if they're a rock star? It gets worse than that because
| your equity and founder equity (let alone the investor's equity)
| aren't the same. Theirs will have things like liquidation
| preferences and participating preferred. Yours may well just
| disappear on dilution or the kiss of death: a down round.
|
| If your startup gets bought in the sub-$100 million range, the
| acquirer might avoid paying out employees by giving signing
| bonuses to the founders to join as VPs and pay out the investors
| while paying pennies on the dollar to common shareholders. This
| may have changed but there were rules around acquiring companies
| for less than ~$60 million that meant it was much better to buy
| the company for $60m and pay founder signing bonuses for another
| $40 million rather than acquiring it for $100 million and that
| $40 million difference is coming out of your pocket.
|
| On top of all that, you, as an employee, will have very limited
| opportunities to liquidiate your equity prior to an IPO that will
| probably never happen (you'll get acquired instead and that
| company may well be public). Founders and investors may sell some
| of their equity on future rounds. Sometimes employees will have
| access to this but often they won't.
|
| Now compare this to the FAANG path. It's pretty easy to get to
| $400k+ total comp for really not that much stress and very little
| uncertainty. You'll never make $100 million this way (unless you
| become an SVP+) but let's face it, your startup isn't making you
| $100 million either.
|
| Honestly, things like this read like VC propaganda just trying to
| keep the pipeline of warm bodies fed. Outliers are used to sell
| this well I have some outliers too: Jeff Bezos, Larry Page,
| Sergey Brin, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. None of them worked
| for a startup first.
|
| The power of anecdotes and survivor bias.
| IMTDb wrote:
| I don't see a lot of people arguing that vest and rest at FAANG
| is going to bring you more money and less stress - in the vast
| majority of cases - than working in a startup.
|
| It's just that some people would rather have the stress,
| freedom and excitment that come with working at a startup,
| rather than completing their OKR to avoid being put on a PIP at
| the next PSC. Even if that means earning less money - on
| average.
| SamvitJ wrote:
| Actually, Jeff Bezos worked at a startup, Fitel, for two years,
| as his first job out of college. (Maybe 1990 D.E. Shaw would be
| considered a startup, too, actually.) But good points
| regardless.
|
| Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos#Early_career
| [deleted]
| N_A_T_E wrote:
| Sounds like the big lesson is having autonomy to do whatever
| needs to be done to solve the problem at hand. Pattern matching
| how to handle situations based on previous success/failures might
| not be the best way to deal with early stage startup questions
| where you have to navigate unknown territory.
| [deleted]
| chaostheory wrote:
| Another bad stereotype is the university dropout founder. The
| reality is that most startup founders, especially the successful
| ones, come from Ivy League level universities if you look at the
| data. This makes sense from the perspective of risk mitigation
| zackmorris wrote:
| I've worked for startups, both under an agency and as a
| contractor, and IMHO the problem isn't how well a startup
| executes, it's how much runway it has. Or some combination of
| those things. We can always gain experience and improve our
| execution, but funding is (sadly) still an open problem.
|
| I adore HN obviously, but am concerned about the idea of
| mentorship as a prerequisite to success. Truthfully, I was far
| more clever fresh out of college at 21 than I am in midlife after
| learning how to supposedly do things better. All I needed was any
| money at all to work on my own projects (something like $24,000
| annually in the year 2000) but nothing like that existed. We
| didn't even have Kickstarter. So I worked a bunch of dead end
| jobs making rent and all but wasted the most productive years of
| my life.
|
| But there have been several changes over the last 20 years that
| removed the artificial barriers to entry that kept me and makers
| like me on the outside. The main one being the JOBS Act of 2012:
|
| https://www.investopedia.com/terms/j/jumpstart-our-business-...
|
| Because of that, non-accredited investors can invest up to 10% of
| their income:
|
| https://www.startengine.com/ (no affiliation)
|
| If I were starting out now, I would largely ignore what other
| people are doing, and figure out a way to raise 2+ years of
| income, or at least $100,000 per person, by checking all of the
| boxes needed for crowdfunding. Then show the campaign to older
| people who have some disposable income that want to invest
| outside usurious and rent-seeking systems like stock markets and
| real estate.
|
| Then I would use something like a referral program to bootstrap:
|
| https://andrewchen.com/how-to-design-a-referral-program/
|
| https://www.coldstart.com
|
| Everything else on the technical side is honestly pretty easy to
| figure out for programmers. There's just not that much to learn,
| it's mostly about balancing process with pivoting to make steady
| forward progress each day. Two-person teams have been more
| productive than entire companies.
|
| And nobody wants to hear it, but, I feel that up to 90% of "best
| practices" today are about working around fundamental
| inadequacies in our tools which still haven't been addressed. For
| example, all databases needed event streams (like Supabase) so
| that we could have had reactive programming from the beginning.
| Jira and countless other similar tools have just not kept up with
| their errata. The level of expertise needed to set up cloud
| deployments has passed the point of believability. Native mobile
| development probably shouldn't be a thing, except for certain
| performance-critical components. And so on.
|
| The big opportunities today are probably NOT in the typical high-
| effort approaches common to startups mired in scaling issues. We
| can look down the road a little and bypass those eventualities,
| assuming that we can scrape up enough funding to work
| independently and avoid groupthink.
| geeny777 wrote:
| How do you pick a high-growth startup that makes it through
| several stages? It's like saying the best way to make money is to
| pick stocks that beat the market.
| lawrjone wrote:
| I mentioned this above, but unlike an investor you don't have
| to pick a start-up that exits successfully for you to gain
| really valuable experience that can help you on your own.
|
| Pick a company with a team you respect, a product you connect
| with, and has money in the bank (just completed a funding
| round).
|
| You can't go much wrong if you do that, at least in terms of
| learning.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Look for the phrase "scale-up" instead of "start-up", these are
| usually well-funded, up-and-running companies that still have
| some of the start-up mentality but without the financial
| worries.
|
| Of course, some of these are already a decade old and may
| employ hundreds or thousands of people already, so YMMV; they
| might just be like older, boring enterprises, just not as
| formal or fixed in their ways.
| solarmist wrote:
| Those are companies that believe they have product market fit
| though. At that point they are starting to transform from a
| startup into an established company.
|
| So most of the early stage learnings can no longer happen.
| lanstein wrote:
| Picking a product that you personally use, love, and would pay
| for helps a lot
| georgesequeira wrote:
| Look at their investors. When interviewing, ask to speak to the
| investors. See what they say. When speaking with founders do
| they have numbers they can show or is it pure show-personship?
| [deleted]
| PeterStuer wrote:
| Counterpoint: I have seen some _very_ bad habits carried over by
| founders from growing companies. Success isn 't always the result
| of excellence.
|
| Also, many founders that worked in somewhat larger environments
| before tend to rush into 'mature' processes long before their
| benefits outweigh their costs. This almost always grinds progress
| to a halt, creates a ton of middle management and other non-
| productive overhead in a startup/scaleup.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Now imagine absolutely inexperienced founders and external
| senior management. You have a total lack of knowledge around
| how to run an org combined with the urge to rush into super-
| mature organisations. That is fun...
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Don't forget that: Most startups fail.
|
| As an employee, you need to vhet the startup even more closely
| than an investor. An investor will spread their money to
| multiple startups; but you can only have a single full time job
| at a time.
| solarmist wrote:
| Even as a solo founder who's worked at startups and large
| companies and knew to avoid this, I still did many mature/best
| practices that have slowed me down. I haven't discarded them,
| but I definitely set many of them aside until later.
| bilsbie wrote:
| Any tips for finding an early stage startup to work for?
| jononomo wrote:
| Does anyone care anymore about just having five kids and a
| backyard and a loving spouse and a wall full of books and solid
| church community? I'm so tired of people just trying to make
| money.
| askafriend wrote:
| 1. What you describe sounds awful (except the loving spouse
| part).
|
| 2. This is a community of people interested in startups. This
| isn't a general purpose audience nor is it meant to be.
| ryanmercer wrote:
| My wife and I are quite religious (LDS). We have 50~ nieces and
| nephews, 2 rooms full of books, a little over a half acre yard,
| grow a sizable percentage of our produce, and nature willing
| would like to have kids.
|
| I still would like money though, lots of money. I need 600k-1
| million USD to quit working just to live. With my current
| income, inflation, etc., I'll likely still be working until I
| physically can't though. If I magically had that 600k-1 million
| today to retire, I'd then be content on the money side. I would
| have the freedom to pursue whatever I wanted to do with my
| time, from volunteering way more to tinkering with
| crafts/considerably expanding our
| growing/YouTube/writing/whatever.
|
| You can want a morally upright life with lots of personal
| relationships, and still want/dream of a nice little pile of
| money.
| Nicholas_C wrote:
| Where do you live? This ideal is alive and well in most of the
| U.S. outside of the big cities.
| arkitaip wrote:
| Most people want those things. The HN bubble just makes it seem
| like doing a startup is the apex accomplishment in life.
| duxup wrote:
| I wonder how many start ups fail because of lack of start up
| experience or ... product just didn't take off?
|
| Not to say experience is bad but I suspect the latter happens
| most of the time despite whatever experience there is.
| tcgv wrote:
| > it was announced that our CTO and the two other most senior
| engineers had also resigned
|
| > As it turned out, everything was pretty much fine. Different
| for sure, but people step up and companies evolve, and while it
| was challenging to fill the gap made by those who had left, it
| happened faster than you might expect.
|
| > Knowing you've been there before is what allows you to respond
| with "I know this will be ok" instead of overreacting, or
| allowing the situation to impact you too harshly
|
| This is spot on and I can deeply relate. In my startup (150
| employees) we had some senior devs departures and the Junior
| staff was acutely impacted, requiring me to put a lot of effort
| into managing the situation and reassuring the team we'd overcome
| it. Fast forward 3 months and we have filled the vacant
| positions, morale is good again and productivity is mostly
| restored.
| coldcode wrote:
| I wish I had had that opportunity back in 1985 when I founded my
| first one, but being outside of the Bay Area (as in 1500 miles
| away) there were basically no software startups at all, and with
| no internet/web/ycombinator etc, no way to learn anything except
| by trying and failing. We did ship our product, do marketing,
| make some sales but not enough so we had to sell the product and
| close down. Today I know all things I did wrong but back then you
| were working in a world unlike today, and not even one person to
| ask as everyone starting software companies back then was just as
| clueless unless you were in a few places in the country. It's
| hard to explain to people today just how hard this was (for
| example I tried to borrow some money at a local bank to buy
| computers, and when told we were a software company, the loan
| officer assumed we were making ladies undergarments).
| silentsea90 wrote:
| Very cool. I think one doesn't need to join a startup for such
| experience nowadays. Simply joining YC/XYZ accelerator might
| help get a structure around the million things that are now
| institutional knowledge so you can focus on what matters.
| testmasterflex wrote:
| That bank quote is too funny! What was the product if one may
| ask?
| coldcode wrote:
| A rather unique take on spreadsheets that would wind up
| influencing others to try experimentations on the spreadsheet
| idea, but all were ultimately killed by Excel, as what
| happened to us. Search "trapeze spreadsheet" on google if you
| care to know more.
| veltas wrote:
| Would be interested in a blog on this
| georgesequeira wrote:
| Idea generator and fundraising are also a couple of benefits to
| joining a startup before starting your own.
|
| 1. Finding ideas can be hard especially when you start from
| scratch. Most startups (particularly fast scaling ones) can give
| you ideas if you look for:
|
| * de-prioritized ideas due to "hyper-focus"
|
| * listening to common problems that customers [0] have that
| aren't necessarily solved by your company.
|
| * product features built that many other companies would find
| useful (e.g. collaborative editing infra)
|
| * internal tooling that other companies would find useful
|
| 2. Fundraising[1]
|
| Many friends got their first checks from investors that were
| investors of a startup they previously worked at. And the truth
| is, if you choose a slow-scaling/zombie startup, you will learn a
| ton still but honestly, the investors of that company aren't
| going to be stoked to invest in you if you spin out your own
| thing.
|
| A quick list of common strategies that worked for them:
|
| * Choose founders who don't treat investors as "dumb money"
|
| * Choose companies backed by great investors
|
| * Join startups that are scaling fast
|
| * Join early (< 40) so you can be part of the "success story"
|
| * Ask to meet the investors throughout your tenure (ideally you
| are upfront with the founders of the company you join)
|
| * Stay there and be a part of the solution through 2+ tough
| moments (ie. investors can associate you with the success of the
| company)
|
| [0] Getting to know potential customers and understanding how to
| acquire them is also super useful.
|
| [1] You can avoid the fundraising focus by going to YC (or
| equivalent) because you'll get the necessary clout to get
| investors knocking. If you're going to a startup anyway to get
| experience and find ideas, you may as well prep for fundraising.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| Work in a startup where the founder has done it before and top
| management has some experience. I've worked in many startups and
| seen many more, and if people are not knowledgeable enough, you
| can't learn a great amount of things.
| ooopsnevermind wrote:
| I worked at early, fast growing startups and later founded and
| raised venture capital for my own startup. You'd think I'd agree
| with this article, but I actually don't, here's why:
|
| 1) Working at fairly successful startups gave me excuses to put
| off starting my own company because I was still "learning so
| much." In retrospect, I should have started my own company years
| earlier.
|
| 2) Identifying startups that will turn into rocketships is hard.
| If you are that good at identifying successful startups early on,
| you should probably consider becoming a VC. :)
| hankchinaski wrote:
| Working at startup sucks. Lower pay, lower stability, overworked,
| much higher risk for the company to go bust. There is literally
| no benefit apart from the fact that the bar is somewhat lower and
| easier to get a job
| 10g1k wrote:
| I wish people would stop calling new businesses "startups". It's
| just a new business.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| This is like half the sell from start up ceos. "Want to start
| your own company someday? Come here and get paid to learn how to
| do that."
|
| As many other have said... You might learn how to run a start up
| but its just as likely you will be able to see mistakes the
| company you joined made and hopefully be able to prevent your
| company from making those same ones.
| m0llusk wrote:
| Potentially good advice here, but some of the details seem off to
| me. Here are some quick attempts to summarize hopefully as
| constructive criticism:
|
| In my experience the best options are almost always the middle
| ground. That is, the startup mentality drives sloppiness and
| excuses while the big company mentality drives slowness and
| perfectionism. The best option is somewhere in between. At a
| startup it can often be extremely valuable to have a "parent in
| the room" enforce big company thinking and oversight, and at a
| big company it is almost always useful to at least envision a
| shorter path than the usual consult with everyone and make a
| design and see how it goes kind of thing.
|
| The "allows you to respond with "I know this will be ok""
| statement as a reaction to major changes and challenges sets off
| red lights all over my dashboard. The situation will be okay
| because you made it okay. This is true in companies of all sizes.
| Fail to take responsibility for the full situation and you are
| likely doomed.
|
| The "any process you introduce will break by the time you double
| the headcount" strikes me as classic startup sloppiness. If you
| really know what the situation is and why you are doing what you
| are doing then even when changes are necessary it is usually
| quite explicitly clear what and why. Solid processes and
| operations often go the other way: even with significant changes
| the core ideas and methods endure, so be careful what you start
| with.
|
| Hiring from your personal networks first is another classic
| sloppy startup error. This tends to end up with clubby teams made
| of people who aren't actually as good as they might be and that
| exclude the people you really want to hire. Better to start well
| outside your personal networks and bring people in as needed.
| Sorting out the interview process at least at first also works
| better if it isn't all friends and long time coworkers.
|
| And this business of defining levels is a real mess. All the best
| organizations I have contributed to have been close to flat.
|
| There are always many paths, but given how treacherous the path
| to startup success can be it seems worthwhile to air criticism.
| jchonphoenix wrote:
| I've worked at multiple startups sub 50 to >1000 (unicorn status)
| and have founded and sold my own company. I've also worked at a
| few of the FAANGs. This is common advice, especially among VCs
| since it's one of the key benefits used to pitch prospective
| employees on giving up that fat FAANG salary, but in my personal
| experience, it's not so cut and dry.
|
| Working in a startup will brand you as a startup person and help
| you meet VCs which may make it easier to raise. It'll also show
| you the problems that that particular startup faces and give you
| n=1 degree of pattern matching. On the flip side, something like
| YC can give you the same benefit or just shipping a for-profit
| side project on the side. Additionally, given how poorly run most
| startups are today, I'd posit that you're actually in more danger
| of learning the wrong lessons than the right lessons by joining a
| startup. At the end of the day, the truth is likely to be Peter
| Thiel's observation that joining the right, highly successful,
| high growth startup as a very early employee is a great way to
| learn exactly 1 method of starting a successful company--the way
| that company did it. But if the startup you join isn't that
| rocketship, you've only learned how to (or how not to) achieve
| that particular path of failure or mediocrity.
|
| Not particularly great advice though, because then the challenge
| becomes identify those startups. And if you could do that
| reliably, I'd suggest you switch careers into VC instead :)
| lawrjone wrote:
| I'm not sure I agree with the comparison of picking a start-up
| to join being the same as one you might invest in.
|
| At least, in terms of this article, a start-up that has growth
| ambitions and has just raised a round is a great bet. Unlike a
| potential investor, you didn't need to get in before that round
| to make the investment worthwhile, and in a sense you don't
| care as much about the company itself being an outsized
| success: not if your primary goal is around learning, which I
| think is legitimate, especially early in your career.
|
| Similarly, I suspect it's not quite right to assume lessons in
| one start-up don't apply to others. In London at least, there's
| a strong network of people across the start-up scene who talk a
| lot. Many of those start-ups have very similar cultures and
| ways of working, similar enough that they hit the same problems
| and lessons learned it one often translate to others.
|
| My intention, writing this article, was to encourage people to
| view joining a start-up with momentum as a valuable learning
| experience before they start their own thing, possibly more
| valuable than a big corporation or just jumping into start-ups
| themselves.
|
| I think finding companies that can provide you with that growth
| isn't too hard, and I'd be happy to help anyone who wanted to
| find them, if they wanted it :)
| jchonphoenix wrote:
| The point is that the valuable lessons and growth on how to
| effectively build a successful startup only occurs at those
| high success high growth companies. I've been at successes
| and failures. You learn much more from success.
| jchonphoenix wrote:
| I agree you can learn many lessons about what not to do. The
| broader point I'm making here is that there's a billion things
| not to do and a few things you should do. The successful
| startups will also make mistakes, iterate, and teach you the
| things not to do but teach you how to figure out what you
| should be doing. The unsuccessful ones just stubbornly plod
| forward and you, the employee, just know you guys screwed it
| up, but have no idea how to find success.
|
| TL;DR YMMV, but it's much more valuable to learn a selection of
| "winning moves" you can apply than it is to learn a bunch of
| "losing moves" not to apply.
| xivzgrev wrote:
| I agree. I joined a few smaller startups and saw plenty about
| how NOT to do things. Only one I joined a larger company did I
| feel happier (in hindsight). And now if I went back to a
| startup, I'd feel more confident about whether the company is
| run poorly and how much I can help it.
|
| Some problems are organizational immaturity and can be fixed.
| Some problems come from leadership and won't change as long as
| those leaders are there.
| jatins wrote:
| +1 Don't think this working for a startup offers much advantage
| for an engineer if they later decide to work on their own.
|
| If you already know programming, there isn't a lot of value add
| that couple years of startup experience offers in terms of your
| programming skills.
|
| The skills that you don't have -- Sales, marketing, hiring --
| you will still not have. Working for a startup, as say, a
| frontend engineer for couple years does not help you get better
| at Sales. You'll need to hire for them or rely on co-founders
| anyway. The "wearing multiple hats" trope is extremely over
| hyped in my experience.
| qqqwerty wrote:
| There is way more than one lesson to learn from each startup.
| You will hopefully learn how to hire (and possibly fire)
| people. You will get insight into the nitty gritty of keeping
| the lights on at a company (taxes, payroll, office leases,
| etc...), and you will get familiar with the typical fundraising
| cycle. Most people don't appreciate how fast 18 months to two
| years of funding can run out. Going through that stuff once or
| twice when you don't have the pressure of being the founder can
| be very beneficial. And while going through an accelerator can
| be a substitute, I can't imagine that encountering a lot of
| this stuff for the first time while trying to start your first
| company would be anything less then very stressful.
|
| For most employees, the best deal for them financially is to go
| the FAANG route. But I absolutely recommend working at a
| startup if you are hoping to one day start your own. It should
| be said that most startup employees are not going to start
| their own company (even ones who think they will). So certainly
| keep that in mind. But I suppose another benefit is working at
| a startup is probably a good way to gauge if starting a startup
| is something you could handle. After having worked at one for a
| while, I have certainly come to more realistic understanding of
| what kind of startup I would be comfortable founding. I almost
| certainly would prefer to bootstrap a small project rather than
| go the VC route, but I think I would feel pretty comfortable
| taking VC money if the opportunity called for it. But I have
| also come to realize that the best fit for me in my next role
| is probably not as a founder, but most likely as a very early
| employee of another startup. But this time around I will have a
| much better idea of what to look for in the founding team.
| lawrjone wrote:
| This is... Almost exactly how I feel, to the detail. Glad I'm
| not alone in that!
| JamesBarney wrote:
| Is working at a startup useful? Yes.
|
| Is more more useful than having a longer runway from big co
| savings? Doubtful.
|
| Most of the lessons you learn are either going to be
|
| 1. General startup lessons (This information is available in
| YC Startup School, lean startup, etc...)
|
| 2. Lessons specific to the problem you're trying to solve
| (Whats the best way to reach rural RV buyers, what keeps
| people from renting a room for a night)
|
| Working at a startup will teach you a little of 1, and none
| of 2. So I'd easily trade the knowledge gained during two
| years of working at previous startup for 2 extra months of
| working on my startup.
| qqqwerty wrote:
| > Is more more useful than having a longer runway from big
| co savings? Doubtful.
|
| Having worked at a startup before, I now know to never risk
| a substantial amount of my own money on the venture. The
| risk of failure is too high. I would either a) go the side
| project->bootstrap route or b) have angel or accelerator
| money lined up, which should be easy because having worked
| at a startup before, my network now includes angel
| investors.
|
| > This information is available in YC Startup School, lean
| startup, etc...
|
| I have participated in Startup School. It certainly has
| some value, but it is in no way a substitute for working at
| a startup. Not even close. Also, your competitors have
| access to the same resources, so it is not exactly a
| competitive edge.
|
| > Whats the best way to reach rural RV buyers, what keeps
| people from renting a room for a night
|
| That is called marketing and market research. Almost every
| startup in existence does it. And if you work at a startup,
| you will get a close up look at how it is done, and you
| will get some valuable lessons on what to do and what not
| to do. And having worked at a startup, I now also have a
| list of potential freelancers in case I wanted to contract
| that work out.
| ido wrote:
| I've worked at multiple startups before starting my own, some
| were more useful than others. In my experience only in lead
| or above positions do you actually get exposure to these
| things - a random IC doesn't really get much insight into the
| company's finances, raising, negotiations, hiring, etc.
|
| From those I was a lead at I got some valuable experience
| (including what not to do) & also contacts (some former
| director/C-level people I'm still in touch with). I still
| learned the vast majority from actually having to handle it
| myself in my own startup but I think I would have learned
| even less (in that particular area) if I was working at
| amazon or google before instead.
| hef19898 wrote:
| I see that in real life at the moment, the part about the badly
| run start-up. With some experience, it is easy to spot the
| mistakes. Most employees are too young / unexperienced so
| realize it. Heck, half of the middle management is still at
| their first jobs out of university. And man, it shows. Nowhere
| near FAANG in terms or organisation or best practices.
|
| Great place to learn a thing or two, if you have the necessary
| background and experience.
| baby wrote:
| There really are millions of lessons to be learned though, not
| just the "how to be successful". If all you did was working at
| a big corp or at a FAANG you will run into tons of issues which
| you will have to deal with at the same time as founder-related
| issues.
| ren_engineer wrote:
| >Additionally, given how poorly run most startups are today,
| I'd posit that you're actually in more danger of learning the
| wrong lessons than the right lessons by joining a startup
|
| this can be more valuable in many ways, I've literally taken
| notes about things NOT to do when it comes to things like
| meetings, processes, etc.
| bick_nyers wrote:
| Exactly, you get to see how early (or late) decisions have
| scaled up, for better or for worse.
|
| You have to take an intelligent approach though, you can't
| just go in the opposite direction, e.g. excess meetings can
| be very damaging to engineers, so let's do 0 meetings.
| muse900 wrote:
| I agree with plenty of what you are saying, at the same time I
| believe that joining problematic start-ups or failing start-ups
| can teach you plenty on how not do things.
|
| Remember that before succeeding you have to fail and improve in
| a cycle of n times until you succeed. If you succeed without
| failing then there is a high probability of luck being
| involved.
| lmeyerov wrote:
| As a tweak:
|
| Follow a top CEO/CTO as person 2-10 with a market you like...
|
| ... And then:
|
| * Learn how 0->1 , product market fit, and overall process works,
| which you miss by joining growth-stage
|
| * Grow from working with customers hands-on to becoming an area
| owner with responsibility around customer journey, revenue,
| hiring & firing, etc. VP Sales, early CTO/Dir of Engineering, CTO
| where you are heavy on sales/solutions engineering flow in big
| enterprises, ... . Working for a VP/director/manager is different
| from owning a part of the business, especially where you have a
| teneous & sales-oriented external aspect like revenue or customer
| success. Likewise, not owning the customer journey hides a lot,
| which is easy to miss in a growing company as specialization
| happens fast, esp in engineering.
|
| * Pick carefully on enterprise vs consumer, which market within
| that, and which internal teams you work with. That's the customer
| persona you need to live & breathe later.
|
| Not easy!
|
| Also, fwiw, there is a big class of professional startup people
| who are 'scale up' experts that can take a working product, VC
| capital raised by other people, and help that grow faster. The
| OP's advice is more for getting on that track. And from a
| founders perspective: you can just hire them, everyone wins. Just
| don't confuse that with a 0->1 skillset, not inherent..
| junwonapp wrote:
| "Want to get to point X? Visit point Y first!"
|
| Just go to point X directly. Too many people shy away from their
| dreams and delay, because they want to learn first, practice
| first, and get ready before the real adventure. You will never
| deplete "more things to learn". You are only depleting your
| lifetime. And no matter how close working at a startup is to
| working on a startup, it will never be as close to it as itself.
|
| If you need to save up some money or take care of any other
| blockers first for your own safety, fine. If there is a great
| company working on a great problem that you are excited by,
| great. But if you want to start a new company, then working at a
| startup is not a practice for starting a new startup. It is a
| practice for working at a startup and a practice for wasting
| another day of your life not living the way you really want to
| live.
| m463 wrote:
| I like this idea. It might be like the best exercise for sport
| x is to play sport x.
|
| And if you fail, you already worked at a startup (by founding
| it)
| wzwy wrote:
| This article is not really about what's unique about working at a
| startup that can give you an advantage when founding your own,
| but more about how to accelerate the learning of skills required
| to do so. Hence, the emphasis on high-growth startups.
|
| But, obviously, not all high-growth startups can provide an
| environment of rapid learning. It's not just about high-growth;
| it's also about how much output the startup is trying to extract
| from its people. The more they try to extract, the faster the
| learning cycle. In that case, a high-growth startup with limited
| resource seems to be the ideal company to work for.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| A start-up is unlikely to have things done right and can be the
| worst place to learn good practices.
|
| Back in the days I knew people who were just working with
| startups and didn't know about testing or versioning.
|
| Most startups have zero documentation.
|
| In my experience you're as likely to find good people in startups
| or in established companies. It's luck, knowing someone who know
| someone.
|
| Experience in the industry is useful. That said you can learn
| just as much if not even more just starting and failing.
|
| Just never stop learning and eventually things will be alright
| swayvil wrote:
| So what they're saying is, if you have "I worked at a startup" on
| your resume, this will make VCs more likely to give you money.
|
| Straightforward enough.
| baremetal wrote:
| This goes for any other business as well.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Good general advice -- it's been good advice for a lot longer
| than the term "startup" has been around.
|
| But the choice of company you work for is important, too.
| Startups are not all the same. You should choose one in the same
| field as your interest, and one that operates with similar goals
| as yours.
| fortuna86 wrote:
| The problems you have as a founder (fundraising, hiring, finding
| product-market fit) are not the concern of most employees.
|
| Also founding a startup makes financial sense, working at one
| usually does not.
| luxurytent wrote:
| No doubt my desire to start my own thing has increased 10x since
| joining a startup (back in November)
|
| Why? I think it's a mix of:
|
| - Getting comfortable building from scratch (we're early stage so
| almost everything we are doing right now is from the start)
|
| - Getting comfortable with new technologies that previously felt
| inaccessible to me (ML, AI)
|
| - Founders are very transparent with the operational and legal
| details of our startup, so I learn a bit here and there about the
| non-technical hard things
|
| - The chase for the first dollars. This is really energizing (and
| hard) part of where I am at right now. It can be prone to
| burnout, but I do now want to try and go for my first $100/month
| Wojtkie wrote:
| > Almost immediately after I arrived, I learned our VP of
| Engineering - who I hugely respected - was leaving.
| Disappointing, but nothing like the shock one month later when,
| at a Friday debrief, it was announced that our CTO and the two
| other most senior engineers had also resigned.
|
| > I remember that meeting, where I and two others remained at the
| table after everyone else had left the boardroom. "Shit" and
| "well this is fucked" was all we managed to say into the shocked
| silence, and I began to worry that I'd made a terrible mistake.
|
| This was my experience, too. The company just released its v2 app
| and was having meetings finalizing an acquisition the first week
| I was there. Within 5 months, the engineering team I worked on
| went from 7-8 employees to 3, including the resignation of the
| CTO. It's going alright now, but it definitely was worrisome.
| losthobbies wrote:
| For me, it was good to see that the person who started the start
| up I worked at was just a normal guy. He hired this CTO though
| that was amazing to work with.
|
| Unfortunately, my impostor syndrome (along with my inexperience)
| became quite crippling and I had to leave.
|
| Looking back, I probably should have left sooner or been
| comfortable with standing up for myself.
| mclightning wrote:
| Want to found a startup? Just become great at your craft. Dont
| waste time with success stories and their advices, because it is
| all survivor bias. Just keep building.
| testmasterflex wrote:
| This and "never give up" are the only solid startup advice one
| should follow. What I work on today I can imagine myself doing
| until I die. I'm 15 years into my first startup and 3 into my
| second. Maybe it takes a simpleminded person to have that
| patience but that's how you win.
| mritchie712 wrote:
| We have a "Founders Program" for people that know they want to
| start a company in the next few years. I think it's better to
| have full transparency on both sides:
|
| As the company: You get highly motivated, amazing talent
|
| As the employee / future founder: You make your intention clear
| to leave in x months to start your own thing and can openly
| discuss strategy for your company with the current founders
| instead of hiding your side projects.
|
| I took this idea from Mighty / Supabase.
|
| Application process is simple, pitch me at mike@luabase.com. Tell
| me what you want to do to grow Luabase and what you're thinking
| of doing for your company.
|
| 0 - https://luabase.notion.site/Founders-
| Program-16f8d963328a47d...
| silentsea90 wrote:
| Is this effectively part time employment?
| mritchie712 wrote:
| Yes. We're flexible on the # of hours, but would need to be
| at least 20 a week to make sense.
|
| We also offer full benefits in the US if the person needs
| them. Finding healthcare in the US without it being thru an
| employer is a huge pain.
| lawrjone wrote:
| I think these programmes are awesome!
|
| We have a few people who are explicitly at incident.io to gain
| experience of how to build companies. It may be that they won't
| go to do this, but their time here will put them in a great
| position to do so, if they ever want to.
|
| I've seen some companies who have a standing offer to angel
| invest in your start-up too, though I was never sure how I felt
| about that.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| On the angel investing, I was thinking that was the next
| logical step too but rather than building an internal
| mechanism and pulling focus I wonder if you could just
| partner with an early stage vc to give them first look in
| return for special consideration and earlier mentorship or
| something. Tons of early vc's with dry powder and minimal
| differentiation to lean on!
| lawrjone wrote:
| Chris (one of our founders) just pointed out that we
| (incident.io) are signed up to the future founder promise:
|
| https://github.com/StellateHQ/future-founder-promise
|
| So we are doing exactly this, which is cool! I think the
| primary value is in leveraging the investor network, as you
| say, though the angel investment is a nice bonus.
| mritchie712 wrote:
| Awesome! Just saw this pull request, would love to have
| Luabase added!
|
| https://github.com/StellateHQ/future-founder-
| promise/pull/6
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| That's a super cool program, props to you for actually putting
| it in place! I guess the next step is to also have a small
| internal vc mechanism (or partnership with a vc firm) that
| gives the first check to people who join? I know that'd be a
| huge plus for me just as an option for something I could
| potentially rotate to in the future if I was thinking of
| joining a new co, it definitely sends a strong pro-
| entrepreneurial signal regardless of whether you're founding
| something or not.
| mritchie712 wrote:
| We'd never write checks out of the company, but I personally
| angel invest and make intros to our investors and any others
| I've talked to. I've pitched nearly every VC someone would
| want to talk to.
| up2isomorphism wrote:
| The most important skill of the startup founder is to find
| funding and customer, while find talent to implement, and if
| there is no suitable talent at that time, he can at least take
| the task until find someone. None of these skills can be acquired
| if you just work for a startup.
| yalogin wrote:
| I don't buy this argument at all. It fully depends on your
| mindset. No big company pays you to become lazy and entitled, at
| least not the FAANG ones referred to by most as the gold
| standard. If you cannot show initiative and growth in a big
| company you don't belong in a start up. People with initiative
| and a drive to do things thrive anywhere and in any condition.
| They solve problems no matter what the form is and forge ahead. I
| do see that working for a startup can be great, but this whole
| "work at a start up first" is just trying to glorify startups and
| nothing else.
| weare138 wrote:
| I don't think it even has to be at a startup. Just having some
| actual job experience in general goes a long way.
| ottoflux wrote:
| i'd add that you also learn (perhaps more) about what _not_ to do
| if you pay attention and keep your ear to the ground while
| working.
| avmich wrote:
| > If you can't hire exceptional people then you shouldn't expect
| exceptional outcomes: e.g, the outcomes most VCs expect.
|
| BS. Exceptional people are mostly an illusion - yes, there are
| (for example) Linus Torvalds and Fabrice Bellard, but there are
| much less such people than startups, orders of magnitudes less.
| Exceptionalism comes from the combination of the idea quality,
| low level of mistakes in execution, some luck in the market, some
| combination of qualities, like perseverance, which smoothes out
| some problems - and other qualities like that, engineering level
| is certainly important but you can have exceptional results with
| just competent engineering. It's hard to find an example of
| textbook successful startups where engineering was outstanding.
| Sorry, won't give examples, just look for yourselves.
| lawrjone wrote:
| Yep, perhaps I should have said if you can't create an
| exceptional environment - of which team, culture and mission
| are all parts - then you can't expect exceptional outcomes.
|
| Hiring people who have experience in those environments before
| can help you replicate that success again, though. So worth
| picking them, if you have a choice.
| urthor wrote:
| Most successful startup founder I know is north of 60. He's been
| at it a decade.
|
| He recently got handed multiple billions to expand from 500 HC.
| Secret ingredient: two decades at Mckinsey.
|
| Biggest trend other than experience is TIME. Most businesses take
| a DECADE to really get going.
| lawrjone wrote:
| I think I failed to communicate this nuance in the article, but
| my major point was how to most quickly develop the experience
| you'd need to start your own company.
|
| I'd imagine McKinsey is a great place to see loads of companies
| and be exposed to a lot of useful stuff. But it probably won't
| pack as much relevant experience into as short a time as
| several years in a start-up 5-10x'ing in size.
|
| Hiroki Takeuchi and Matt Robinson - two of the GoCardless
| founders - both left McKinsey to start GC. I'd imagine that
| experience was incredibly useful, though you'd have to ask them
| if they think it's more or less valuable than seeing things at
| a different start-up beforehand.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| Really, the secret ingredient was McKinsey? Maybe I'm biased
| but except for one person, I've never worked with McKinsey
| folks (and working in Germany you work with many) and thought
| they'd be great entrepreneurs
| bolton_strid wrote:
| hcks wrote:
| Contra a lot of popular belief here: I don't understand how
| working as an engineer (because this is always what seems to be
| implied) will improve your odds at starting a startup.
|
| Working as an engineer, and kickstarting a business are two very
| different jobs.
|
| Even in practice successful tech startup founders seems to be 40
| yos with a background in management consulting. So I really
| wonder where do people get the idea that working as an engineer
| is a path towards entrepreneurship.
|
| EDIT: and it's rather ironic that the author doesn't himself run
| his own startup.
| PeterisP wrote:
| The key assertion of the fine article seems to be that if
| you've worked as an engineer in a startup, then you at least
| have seen first-hand how startups work, how they are run, what
| problems they encounter and what solutions work/fail there. The
| dynamics of a startup are quite different from those in a
| large, stable (even if growing) company, so an ex-startup-
| engineer might have seen more relevant things than a middle
| manager from some Fortune 500 company.
| lawrjone wrote:
| I'm not sure most successful tech start-up founders have
| management consultant backgrounds, I've not seen that at least!
|
| Speaking to the point about not having been a founder myself:
| you're right, and hope I was clear about that in the article.
| But I have spent the last year as the first employee working on
| building out a start-up, where a big challenge is in
| establishing a team and learning how to build a product that
| people want to buy.
|
| When you build a start-up as a founder, you need to know how to
| do that stuff. Otherwise there won't be much point in being
| good at the founder-specific work like raising money etc,
| because there's not a business around it.
|
| The main point is to try to minimise the 'firsts' you might
| have when you start your own company. If the only thing you're
| doing for the first time is exclusively founder responsibility,
| then I think you're much more likely to be successful.
| ghiculescu wrote:
| > But I have spent the last year as the first employee
| working on building out a start-up, where a big challenge is
| in establishing a team and learning how to build a product
| that people want to buy.
|
| Lots of people have these experiences but don't succeed as
| founders.
|
| I suspect a key difference is you are currently doing it
| without real risk, and with someone else's risk appetite. I'd
| be wary of trying to apply the exact same approach when it's
| your company on the line. So in that sense there will be just
| as many "firsts" either way.
| wirelesspotat wrote:
| Great blog post, particularly the anecdotes about working at
| GoCardless. Thanks for sharing
| lawrjone wrote:
| Thanks!
| synu wrote:
| I would suggest joining even smaller than 40 if you can, although
| that's not bad. I had joined a 250 person startup before founding
| my first company and I can say confidently I had no idea what I
| was getting myself into, and I think the experience would have
| helped.
|
| Either way you're going to be figuring out a lot of stuff on your
| own, but I think I would have recognised that earlier and would
| have had a little more practice.
| polote wrote:
| If you lack the confidence to start a startup then working at one
| can help you gain than to create one in the future. But I'm not
| confident it increases the chances the company is going to be
| successful.
|
| Actually if you had the chance to work at a company that became a
| unicorn, you will have better chance to get founding which
| increase the chance that your company is going to work, so yeah.
|
| Except for that confidence and founding part I'm not sure it is
| valuable
| lawrjone wrote:
| I'm first employee at a start-up now, and while not a founder,
| the experience I have from seeing this stuff in previous
| companies totally changes the game.
|
| When we decide to do something, such as make key hires, build
| new teams or invest in infrastructure, we have way more
| confidence that we're doing it at the right time. And when we
| do it, it's 90% what we need, skipping so many of the painful
| intermediate stages I've seen before.
|
| It makes a huge difference in velocity, which is key for
| successful start-ups. So while you're right about funding and
| network, you execute better too.
| polote wrote:
| Yeah so what you explain is that you have more confidence
| about what your do, but that says nothing about the success
| rate of previous startup employee vs success rate of others
| Jgrubb wrote:
| Yes, having experience in a domain can help you be more
| confident in your decisions. Are you trying to argue that
| experience plays no role in long term outcomes of building
| businesses?
| wzwy wrote:
| I don't think he's arguing about the benefit of having
| confidence and experience in a domain, but rather the
| origin of the experience and confidence and how it
| impacts a startup's success.
|
| In this case: the startup success rate of those who
| worked for startups vs those who worked in some other
| institutions (or for some, no work at all).
|
| Sure, working at a startup might make you be confident at
| making decisions, but will that confidence lead to good
| results when you're a founder? Working at another place
| can give you confidence as well, but again, will it help
| you get the results you want in your startup?
|
| Anyhow, I'm not sure the answers matter much because the
| author didn't write much about the uniqueness of the
| skills learnt in startups. He emphasised more on velocity
| of learning skills that can be learnt in many places, but
| high-growth startups can provide the fastest route.
| robocat wrote:
| Another massive advantage is finding cofounders and employees
| from the pool of people you work with and meet.
|
| I think that is the best way to find suitable people outside
| your specialty where you can properly judge people's integrity,
| ability, and their match with you (working style, filling the
| holes in your skills, compatibility, boss vs employee).
|
| I have done this, no I have seen other successful entrepreneurs
| do it.
| ido wrote:
| But aren't these already valuable? I now run my own startup and
| i feel i benefited a lot from my former stints in other
| startups, even when some of it fell into the "what not to do"
| category :)
|
| Also in a startup you're more likely to need to wear multiple
| hats and deal with uncertainty, which are two things you'd
| definitely need to deal with even more in your own company.
| ryanmercer wrote:
| As someone that spent 15 and a half years working for FedEx and
| then jumped ship to join TrueNorth shortly after their Series B
| I've definitely found it interesting.
|
| FedEx:
|
| - an ancient dinosaur, using a LOT of ancient tech (I did my job
| in an AS400 terminal for 15 and a half years).
|
| - A bureaucratic dinosaur, even backfilling positions could take
| 6 months just to get a posting and even simple office fun
| activities had to be kicked up the chain to corporate legal for
| approval
|
| - You were a serial number, mine was 628254
|
| - Everything I did was micromanaged to the second via time stamps
|
| - Reviews were rigid, mechanical, impersonal
|
| TrueNorth:
|
| - Agile, even in the 6 months I've been there things have rapidly
| changed (and for the better) and that just blows my mind. I know
| it's normal for a startup but it's truly like magic to me.
|
| - Not a bureaucratic dinosaur, our CEO is hands on in the
| trenches still. She's there asking questions, looking for
| feedback, keeping a decent working knowledge of everything that
| is going on. There aren't a dozen people between her and the
| lowest rung of the ladder.
|
| - I'm not a serial number, I'm just Ryan. I'm treated like a
| human being.
|
| - Reviews are typical for modern companies. I can also ask my
| boss for feedback any time and, unlike at FedEx, know I'm going
| to get actionable feedback and not have him scrutinizing
| everything I do for the next few days/weeks wondering what I'm
| trying to hide/cover up in my work.
|
| ---
|
| I definitely see a lot at TN that is being done much better than
| at a dinosaur like FedEx, we have the ability to just try
| something if we think it's going to work better unlike at FedEx
| where it would have to be kicked up through multiple rungs of
| management, then non software engineers would be tasked to
| investigate it, then maybe 3-4 months later a very limited time
| study would get approved and done, and then that new process -
| regardless of if it was better - would get buried. At a startup
| it's just "sure, give it a try, see what happens" most of the
| time or a much more immediate feedback "actually, that is going
| to be an issue because of x, y, and z".
|
| I did join TN when it was north of 50 people though. It had 2
| years and change of operating before I joined so I did miss out
| on the truly chaotic bits but 100% I would say I'm now better
| equipped for either a brand spankin' new startup or a decades old
| company due to my time here. I absolutely think differently than
| when I started 6 months ago and I don't feel stifled by some
| antiquated system of doing business. If I have an idea I can go
| explore it, or even try it, I can grab 15 minutes from someone's
| calendar to ask why they're doing something a certain way and
| what about it is annoying/is awesome, and I can take that and
| maybe apply it to my work or even let my brain percolate on how
| to improve that for them.
|
| If I ever had an idea for a startup, I 100% feel better equipped
| to take stab at it now that I've worked for one. I definitely
| know what is working as far as communication, documentation,
| scoping, etc.
| leetrout wrote:
| My experience at a few startups does not align but I support the
| overall thesis.
|
| More than one startup talked a big game in hiring about the
| product, the customers and the culture only to be more of a cult
| of personality where decisions were made in private between
| cofounders despite being an "open" company, unequal pay despite
| "transparent" salaries with bands, a lack of managerial skills or
| care for personnel management (once told not to bring my feelings
| to work) and in almost every single instance a technical founder
| or early engineer that cannot or will not share work by
| delegating.
|
| The most important things I have learned have absolutely came
| from being involved with startups and 90% are what NOT to do.
|
| The good thing is I identified what I love:
|
| "Devops" and adding automation and structure to processes very
| early. Everyone thinks is has to get in the way or will slow them
| down. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
|
| Building people is was more fun than building tech but you have
| to be on top of your hiring game early on. And you have to be
| willing to share and trust.
|
| You have to ship. But that doesnt mean you dont invest in
| yourself. If you have money for 100 days then build for 100 days.
| If you have money for 2 years then build for 2 years. This means
| making that investment in your tools and your process.
|
| Lastly, if you are B2B, buy a SOC2-in-a-box and get it over with
| and use something like auth0 or workos and just be ready with SSO
| integrations. Dont put off the foundational tablestakes of doing
| business with other tech companies.
| ghiculescu wrote:
| Last suggestion deserves a caveat. Unless more than 5% of your
| revenue will unconditionally require SOC2, you should avoid
| doing it and accept the small revenue hit.
|
| But you are correct, if you _do_ need it, you should do it as
| early as you can and buy it out of the box as much as you can.
| I recommend Tugboat Logic for this.
| leetrout wrote:
| That's true!
|
| For those that do not know, an audit is going to cost AT
| LEAST $20k but the total cost could be more than $50k
| (certainly more if you are paying market rate and you account
| for the team's time to pull everything together). And the
| requirements can cause side effect costs (penetration tests,
| etc).
| lawrjone wrote:
| As an incident management tool, getting certified was a
| thing we knew we needed early.
|
| Gotta hand it to Chris (one of our founders) who came from
| being Director of Platform at Monzo (a UK neobank) and had
| spent years battling auditors, and knew exactly how to play
| it.
|
| Kinda hammers home the point of my article... but about
| three months into our company life, we were SOC 2
| certified, and it didn't feel like much effort at all.
|
| In case anyone is looking for actionable advice, we used
| Vanta to help us through the process. If you're funded, I
| think it's well worth the money.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| After working at a startup, I don't think I would ever start one
| because I'm not interested in exploiting people when it comes
| work life balance or compensation.
| bolton_strid wrote:
| ghiculescu wrote:
| Founder here. Seen plenty of people who "want to start a startup"
| come through the doors over 10 years.
|
| To my knowledge, only 1 ever took the plunge, the rest all moved
| on to different jobs when they finished up with us. In every case
| they told me that an advantage of the new place is that they'd
| learn some more things they need to know for when they start
| their own thing.
|
| To be clear I don't judge their choices at all. Just pointing out
| that this is a pretty common thing people tell themselves.
|
| By contrast the former employees who have gone on to do their own
| startup expressed no interest in the topic until one day they
| were suddenly a founder.
| speakfreely wrote:
| This seems about right. Startup ideas are the white collar
| equivalent of day dreaming about how you would spend the money
| if you won the lottery. It's cheap to talk about, easy to
| fantasize about, and many people have a very distorted
| perception of what skills are necessary to be an effective tech
| founder so (in their minds) their technical proficiency makes
| it plausible.
| silentsea90 wrote:
| I am in the same boat as an employee who left a cushy job at G
| to join a startup with the motivation to start my company, but
| I feel there's a limit to "preparation" and one needs to be
| honest and take the plunge. Else, I am bs-ing myself.
| silentsea90 wrote:
| As somebody who's worked at startups aplenty, this is ok advice
| for the first X years of your career, where X might be ~2-5.
| Beyond that, if you're still joining startups to found one
| eventually, you have to question what you're gaining from the
| time you spend at a startup. It is easy to claim you're preparing
| for an iron man triathlon, and just keep training and never
| actually participating in one.
| invitrom wrote:
| Hmm I feel like most founders I know just started companies after
| college without much experience. While people that want to get
| experience first seem to never end up starting a company. I think
| it mostly comes down to risk adversity.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| Just to contrast this: Most of the startup founders I've met,
| have previously worked in consulting (think McKinsey, Bain,
| BCG, etc.).
|
| Which I guess makes sense, as they've been exposed to certain
| industries from top to bottom, as well as people with enough
| funds to actually invest.
| fma wrote:
| Doesn't match the data...
|
| https://hbr.org/2018/07/research-the-average-age-of-a-succes...
| eatonphil wrote:
| That says "successful". If you're just talking about all
| founders it may be different.
| eatonphil wrote:
| I think the average US founder age is 40s. But I'm not sure
| since most statistics focus on _successful_ founders. This link
| seems to look at all of them.
|
| https://www.zippia.com/founder-jobs/demographics/
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| The average founder of a business is not founding a VC-
| targeted startup, or even a technology business. There are a
| lot more landscapers counted in all of these surveys of
| successful startup businesses than founders who even
| considered YC.
| lawrjone wrote:
| I am absolutely not saying you can't do this. In fact,
| GoCardless is an example of a company started by very young
| founders with little start-up experience, and is now a unicorn.
|
| The difference is that if you have this experience when
| starting a company, it can help you avoid so many stumbling
| blocks, and you can skip forward to more mature company stages.
|
| While you can't really compare two companies, I think it's
| interesting that the company I currently work at (incident.io)
| has only taken a year to go from me joining as the first
| employee to 40 people + series A + hundreds of customers now.
|
| There's no way we'd have moved so fast if it wasn't a case of
| replicating what we already knew worked, tweaked for the
| environment we found ourselves in.
|
| So yes, it doesn't mean you can't be successful as an
| inexperienced founder, but I do think it makes a difference in
| terms of execution.
| checkyoursudo wrote:
| Is a "startup" the same as starting a company? If I start a
| company without ever seeking external funding/accelerating/etc,
| is my company a "startup" in the same way that "founding a
| startup" implies?
|
| I was under the impression that starting a company in general
| and 'starting a startup' are not exactly the same thing, though
| I surely might be wrong about this.
| hollerith wrote:
| In his essays Paul Graham defined "startup" as a company
| designed to grow quickly.
| ido wrote:
| I think this may just be your bubble - I'm 39 and worked as a
| programmer since I was 18 in 3 different cities/countries & I
| know lots of both experienced people and people out of college
| who started companies.
| sausagefeet wrote:
| > I believe if you want the best chance of succeeding as a
| founder, first join an existing high-growth start-up where you
| can learn what good looks like, before you start something
| yourself.
|
| We're all entitled to our beliefs, but this seems very specific
| to me. Why doe sit have to be "high-growth"? What if your startup
| isn't meant to be "high-growth"? Why do you specifically have to
| work at a startup? I believe getting some work experience is a
| good idea, mostly just because if you want to put other people's
| livelihood in your hands, one should probably mature a bit.
|
| Additionally, this advice falls into the classic trap of "I did
| this, and therefore I think everyone else should". The advice
| could be true, or it could not, there is no way of knowing, so at
| the end of the day, the value of such advice is pretty low, IMO.
| tsss wrote:
| Because startup companies are by definition high-growth. The
| term has become significantly overused by clueless journalists
| and business types looking to pad their resumes with buzzwords.
| lawrjone wrote:
| Specifically, high growth is useful because you can spend a few
| years there and get experience of doing many things at several
| different company sizes.
|
| It means you get several opportunities to learn how to do a
| specific thing, and see how different attempts yield different
| results. At a company that grows more slowly you'll need to
| revisit things less frequently, which reduces your opportunity
| to learn.
|
| You're right though, I don't have experience doing things other
| than what I've done. I can only speak to how useful my
| experience has been when going back to very early stage as a
| first employee, which has a lot of overlap with founder.
|
| And in that sense, I'm continually thankful I have the
| experience I do in my current position. I think it means I'm
| materially more impactful, and I can only imagine performing
| significantly worse without it.
| sausagefeet wrote:
| > You're right though, I don't have experience doing things
| other than what I've done. I can only speak to how useful my
| experience has been when going back to very early stage as a
| first employee, which has a lot of overlap with founder.
|
| I think you're missing the critique: you don't know how
| useful your experience has been just because you experienced
| it. This is why systematic studies are necessary: to collate
| a lot of experiences to see what works and what doesn't (and
| even those are hard).
| lawrjone wrote:
| Totally accept this as a critique of the article!
|
| I think the content is still useful, though. Especially as
| it gives some examples of the type of challenge that appear
| routinely when scaling a company, and why experience seeing
| this before can help you avoid similar mistakes if you ever
| start your own thing.
|
| I'd personally love to see people write competing posts
| from other angles, even if they too will be limited by the
| author's own experience.
|
| It would be great to hear what type of stuff you can learn
| from working at a large corporation was particularly useful
| when starting a company. I'd read that in a heartbeat!
| PeterisP wrote:
| The needs of a startup are quite different than (and often
| conflicting or opposite to) the needs of a stable, large
| company. So if you have learned "what good looks like"
| elsewhere and have no first-hand experience in a high-growth
| environment, then you as a founder may be prone to decisions
| that are a poor fit in the context of a startup, which by
| definition is a high-growth. Launching an "ordinary" (i.e. non-
| high-growth) new business in an established niche will have
| much more overlap with previous work experience at some
| corporation than trying to get product-market fit for a
| startup.
| sausagefeet wrote:
| Let's take it as a given that the needs of a startup are
| different from a stable, large company. That doesn't mean
| working at a startup is the best way to learn how to make
| your own startup. You could work at a company that is
| seriously dysfunctional and learn things you shouldn't. You
| could work at a company that just fell into amazing success
| and not learn anything that applies to the startup you'll
| make.
| hnbad wrote:
| I think a better framing would be: Want to found a company? Work
| at one first.
|
| Every startup is different. A bootstrapped startup that has to be
| cashflow positive from day one is different than one built on an
| initial investment.
|
| Having work experience also means you can better understand if a
| startup model is actually appropriate for what you're trying to
| build. Startups in the sense that VCs use the term are high risk
| high reward and optimize growth for a high ROI exit. This is
| great if you want to take the gamble for a chance to retire at
| 35, not so great if you just want a fulfilling work life or can't
| afford to loose.
|
| The quickest way to tank a startup is to run out of money, yours
| or your investors'. I guess if you want to optimize for outcomes,
| the best advice would simply be: Want to found a startup? Be
| wealthy. But that doesn't make for a good blog post.
| daenz wrote:
| I've worked at several startups, but my experience has been that
| I've been relatively siloed in my work. Maybe I wasn't taking
| advantage of the startup experience, but aside my limited view at
| standups, I didn't know how the sausage was made in different
| areas of the company. I couldn't see how it all fit together,
| because I had an incomplete picture.
| lawrjone wrote:
| Yeah, this recommendation only works if you can make the most
| of opportunities at whichever company you've joined.
|
| I got lucky, in that GoCardless gave me a load of opportunity
| and I grew a lot with the company, which opened more doors.
|
| Not every company is like this, so that's a significant caveat
| to this advice. But ideally you'd find companies that are.
| dkyc wrote:
| I feel like this article makes valid points, but they don't
| necessarily support its conclusion. The question it asks whether
| to start a startup or work at another startup first. Yes, working
| at a startup and gaining experience will likely improve your
| abilities and increase your chances to succeed later. However, so
| would starting your own startup.
|
| The question about working somewhere else is not "is it better
| than nothing", but "is it better than starting a startup _now_ ".
| It can be equally true that "founders that worked at other
| companies before are more likely to succeed" and "the ideal
| course of action for a person who wishes to start a successful
| startup is to start it now".
| lawrjone wrote:
| I think the thing about starting your own start-up without
| experience seeing what works elsewhere is you're highly
| unlikely to avoid making some big mistakes.
|
| If you've spent time in a growing company and at least seen how
| things evolve over the years, you have an idea of what does
| work that you can base your first attempts against.
|
| Trying to come up with novel solutions for everything from
| hiring to org structure is a recipe for pain, and I'd invest my
| money with a team of people who've experienced good versions of
| these things over those with none any day.
| dkyc wrote:
| I don't doubt that. But you don't have to come up with 'novel
| solutions' for everything because you can read books, watch
| conference talks, listen to podcasts, read blog posts, by
| people who have done it before. Working somewhere will give
| you a very close and detailed, but n=1 experience of one
| company.
|
| But I'm biased, as I started my first startup at 16 and
| failed, and proceeded to re-try at 18, and succeeded. I'm not
| doubting that someone with years of experience in high-growth
| startups would have been a better founder than me at 16, but
| I do think that starting a startup was a choice that lead me
| to startup success faster than trying to get a job and then
| attempting.
|
| _> and I 'd invest my money with a team of people who've
| experienced good versions of these things over those with
| none any day._
|
| This is an absolutely valid (and imo likely correct)
| assessment, but it's a different question than "What should
| I, as the potential founder or employee, do?".
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