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Ask HN: How do you find early stage startups to join
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Re: Ask HN: How do you find early stage startups to join
#12Look for startups that interest you and then email the founders. Follow up every two months until you hear a hard no. Things are absolute chaos at an early startup and it's rare that the job board (if even there at all) is up to date. Source: I work at an early stage startup.
This should be the top comment. Nailed it.
Re: Ask HN: How do you find early stage startups to join
#13Watch funding announcements and reach out directly, preferably with a warm intro if you can get one. Recently funded startups are often under pressure to hire ASAP and if you convince them to hire you, they’ll do anything to close the deal (i.e. they’d rather beat a high counter-offer than restart their interviewing cycle).
Re: Ask HN: How do you find early stage startups to join
#141. Twitter: Founders and employees of early stage startups are often on twitter.
2. Portfolios of great angel investors and VC firms.
3. Emailing people you admire, eg investors, founders, or engineers.
4. Write down your friends and past and current colleagues who you think are a) most likely to be successful and b) you’d most enjoy working with. Or even just who you most like, trust, and admire. Then see where they work. And ask them about other companies they know. The simplest version of this is go on LinkedIn, and browse your network, and click to check out the companies all of your past classmates and colleagues work at.
5. Go to events that would have interesting technologists in your field (ie the areas where you have skill and taste, so you can pick who you admire), and ask them where they work, and which startups they’ve been impressed by. Talks, conferences, meetups, maker spaces.
6. Biased self-promotion: I’m kind of obsessed with interesting startups and sometimes share lists of startups, eg https://x.com/chrisbarber/status/1957834156794343730 and https://x.com/chrisbarber/status/1957446016950816866
7. HN who is hiring thread: there are lots of interesting ones there, you’ll just want to dig through to find them.
8. Look up university career fair company lists to see which companies are hiring, if they’re hiring new grads and interns then they’re very likely hiring senior engineers too.
9. Podcasts: some technologists have great podcasts, so do some investors and VC firms.
10. Search for startups founded by alumni from your school, you’re more likely to have alumni second degree connections there.
I’ll note that investors get many bets, employees get one at a time. So you need a higher bar. Meeting in person is particularly high signal.
My tip for filtering companies is to spend as much time as possible in person with the team before accepting an offer, ideally at least on 3+ separate occasions, with 3+ separate people. If there’s doubt, skip. This is also why it’s so good to start by identifying your most impressive friends and colleagues and see where they work, because you start with that high trust filter.
Re: Ask HN: How do you find early stage startups to join
#15I joined 3 seed->Series A startups where I didn't know one of the cofounders. I would never recommend it. Only join early startups if you have worked with at least one of the cofounders before.
Re: Ask HN: How do you find early stage startups to join
#16Watch funding announcements and reach out directly, preferably with a warm intro if you can get one. Recently funded startups are often under pressure to hire ASAP and if you convince them to hire you, they’ll do anything to close the deal (i.e. they’d rather beat a high counter-offer than restart their interviewing cycle).
This should be the top comment. Nailed it
Re: Ask HN: How do you find early stage startups to join
#17I'm curious as to why startup would be a goal specifically vs the job itself at any company? Lifestyle, company size, career growth, equity, something else?
1. AI is past the inflection point. Startups are best positioned to accelerate on this. I don't mean AI products, but just hiring people who are good at cursor and don't have this mental block. They're able to get to a more optimal 1 engineer per PM ratio without the demoralization of firing a whole bunch. These companies are growing a lot faster and earlier than before.
2. Late stage funding is dry, early stage funding is cheap now. It's been three years of "winter is coming".
3. Even without the equity, you're positioned to be in a good place with the right growth.
To me, it's just riding the wave instead of complaining about the wave.
Re: Ask HN: How do you find early stage startups to join
#18Watch funding announcements and reach out directly, preferably with a warm intro if you can get one. Recently funded startups are often under pressure to hire ASAP and if you convince them to hire you, they’ll do anything to close the deal (i.e. they’d rather beat a high counter-offer than restart their interviewing cycle).
Didn't work for me. Many still emphasize culture over fast hiring. It also doesn't change that they're hiring in an employer's market - they can be picky, and I've been rejected such a company after doing some kind of MBTI test lol.
Re: Ask HN: How do you find early stage startups to join
#19I've personally had the most professional success leveraging my network or friends' network. Also just going to parties and social events where the expectation isnt to meet professional folks. You can get to know people in a bit more genuine sense
Re: Ask HN: How do you find early stage startups to join
#20Young startups often use third party recruiters. Whenever I am looking for a job, I go through my email archives looking for their cold emails and reach out to them.