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Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

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Re: Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

#21

Post by detaro »

ihuman wrote: post #20
Swizec wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This article was completely unnecessary because everyone should know by now what a startup entails, and that it is fundamentally unstable, but that doesn't mean it's not important as a venture and concept. Strong disagree. Living in San Francisco I often hear the phrase “I work at a small startup, we have just 100 employees” That is significantly different than what you describe which is more of a 5 to 20 people st…

> I work at a small startup, we have just 100 employees Is that even a startup anymore? To me, any company of that size is just a normal company, not a startup.

Depends if you subscribe to the "company just starting out" definition of "startup", or the "burning money for hockey-stick growth" definition.

Re: Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

#22

Post by colechristensen »

>But when you compare it to the defined structure of an established company, it just doesn’t compare. Big companies have employee onboarding, management training, goal setting they’ve been doing for years — all of the things that give people guidance and mentorship on what they need to do to be successful.

Goal setting, training, onboarding... these are processes, process doesn't make good management. The problems with startups is many of them are filled with employees who have had little experience outside of that company. Good managers are created with experience. Experiencing good and bad managers and employees in a few different environments is what creates good managers. Not HR policy.

It is a good idea for your career to work in a few places for a few years a piece before starting a new business or joining a small startup. Good managers can't be created with policy and training.

Re: Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

#23

Post by strikelaserclaw »

BowBun wrote: post #16
mkozlows wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of things that you simply can't learn by yourself, though. The practicalities of doing things on a team, at scale, are just out of scope for personal side projects.

Agreed. The more I grow, the more I realize it is unrealistic to develop skills in scaling architecture, massive-scale software, etc. with only your own projects. You either need to contribute to large projects, find large projects to hire you, or push for scaling patterns which may be out-of-scope for your current job. This is actually something I've been thinking about lately: how can I train/practice these meaning…

This is a real problem in trying to learn how to scale systems. I love learning about scaling but I've never personally worked on high volume applications, there's only so much you can do by reading stuff or watching tutorials or emulating high volume in your side projects. There's so many x-factors that come into play that you can only learn on the job.

Re: Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

#24

Post by kodablah »

> If you’re seriously considering both options — a traditional company and a startup — here are some points to consider.

There are so many definitions of "startup", but given the common one of "VC funded trying to get big", I'd say there's a third company type between these two I dub a "starting-up". It's an early traditional company that's in the black but is not poised to go through the roof or become bloated with employees or ask a ton of its employees. Almost like a lifestyle business. Maybe it has tiny investment, but definitely not big startup monies. It has half of each including the bad (bad mgmt, unlikely riches, few benefits, etc) and the good (bit more stability, no overwork, etc).

Maybe it's seen as a startup or traditional by most, but I see them as a really comfortable niche. You get to work on side projects, go home (or work from home) with decent hours, and just relax. Often if small/early enough, if they do strike it rich, you're included.

Re: Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

#25

Post by gkoberger »

strikelaserclaw wrote: post #18
gkoberger wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never met a startup that wasn't desperate to hire :) That being said, many startups ignore inbound applications, because the signal to noise ratio is so bad. If you want to work at a startup, I'd recommend a few of the following: 1/ Apply for A-List, Hired.com or Triplebyte 2/ Look at Who's Hiring posts on HN 3/ Update your LinkedIn and AngelList to seem hire-able (but not TOO hire-able!) Use a real pic of yours…

awesome points, in your experience does having experience in big corp tech (am a .NET dev) hamper your success in getting hired at a startup? I really do enjoy the .NET world and invested many hours in it, i would hate that to be a crutch.

Good and bad news! The bad news is there's way fewer .NET startups out there (most are Ruby/Node/Python). But the good news is that you'll have a lot less competition for jobs!

StackShare has a way to search job listings by language:

https://stackshare.io/match?selectedTools=dot-net&searchOper...

Re: Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

#26

Post by [deleted] »

colechristensen wrote: post #22

>But when you compare it to the defined structure of an established company, it just doesn’t compare. Big companies have employee onboarding, management training, goal setting they’ve been doing for years — all of the things that give people guidance and mentorship on what they need to do to be successful. Goal setting, training, onboarding... these are processes, process doesn't make good management. The problems wi…

[deleted]

Re: Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

#27

Post by aaavl2821 »

WilliamEdward wrote: post #5

The problem with startups has always been a fundamental one, and not really one you can change without redefining what a startup actually is - people try way too hard to start them. Let me explain; it's reported very very often on YC that 90% of startups fail, and while a lot of these points in the article are disguised as separate ideas, they're all part of the same problem being that people want to make something f…

In non-tech industries big companies actually have a lot of trouble innovating, or driving resources and infrastructure to new initiatives. Startups exist to overcome this lack of maneuverability at big companies. Often the entrepreneurs are seasoned execs from these big companies who can't realize their vision under big company constraints

Biopharma is a perfect example. It represents over 20% of venture funding. Most entrepreneurs are 50+ years old. Big companies get orders of magnitude lower return on r&d investment than VC backed companies. And the returns have actually been better than tech startups in the last few years

Re: Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

#28

Post by k__ »

dumbfounder wrote: post #7

I think it's interesting that the major point is that you will learn a lot, but he also says that you should not expect to be mentored or given any real direction. This is definitely my experience, but it doesn't mean that startups teach you these things, it means that you have to teach yourself these things and you are in an environment where you are forced to do it. You can also do this and keep your day job if you…

True, but then you have a job AND have to work on the side project.

Working at a startup is a bit like going to university, while working a regular day job is like going to school.

You have to find out what needs to be done by yourself, nobody cares if you succeed anymore.

Re: Why you should, and shouldn’t, join a startup

#29

Post by mpodlasin »

It's funny how my experience is exactly reverse. Since I joined startup I learn much less, since we can't afford experimentation and there are no other front end devs here, so I don't get a chance to learn backend stuff, since someone has to do front end part.

I also hoped to learn some business stuff, but most of it happens behind closed doors between founders and investors while you code boring crud application.

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