For designers/programmers, yes. Not as easy for us business grads.
You might find this post I wrote a while back useful: http://estromberg.com/post/4778188872/how-to-get-a-job-at-a-...
Very useful indeed.
Why to Join a Startup After Graduating
31–39 of 39 posts
Re: Why to Join a Startup After Graduating
#32Yeah... if you want to get paid minimum wage to do amazingly skilled and specialized work.
Re: Why to Join a Startup After Graduating
#33For designers/programmers, yes. Not as easy for us business grads.
If it was easy, everyone would be doing it! There are 5-10x as many jobs in design/eng compared to biz dev/product mgmt/mktg.
In business, if you don't have tech/startup experience I would argue it's harder to make the jump to it. You limit your options pretty quick if that's what you ultimately want to do.
Re: Why to Join a Startup After Graduating
#34I still hold the best place for a person after graduation is a large but not monolith company. Avoid Google, Microsoft, Amazon, the giant companies where you're just a cog in a giant machine. Go to a company like LinkedIn/Dropbox/Square. They are growing and are hiring, they aren't startup level anymore but most likely you will many benefits of startup life (freedom to move around, less clearly defined roles) without…
As Marc Andreesen wrote, you want a fast grower. If the company is growing, there will be plenty of opportunities for you to grow with it. If it isn't, you're fighting over a fixed-size pie with every other employer.
LinkedIn/Dropbox/Square are great choices today. But so are Google, FaceBook, or (if you get into one of their growth products like AWS) Amazon. I've been with Google a bit over two years and am already more senior than 60% of employees. And my job description is anything but set in stone; it seems to have changed roughly every month for the past year, and I have a lot of latitude to set it myself.
Re: Why to Join a Startup After Graduating
#35I still hold the best place for a person after graduation is a large but not monolith company. Avoid Google, Microsoft, Amazon, the giant companies where you're just a cog in a giant machine. Go to a company like LinkedIn/Dropbox/Square. They are growing and are hiring, they aren't startup level anymore but most likely you will many benefits of startup life (freedom to move around, less clearly defined roles) without…
Medium sized companies of all stripes seem to be the best for someone early in their career. Small enough to notice you, but big enough to have somewhere to move you once you are noticed. One of the biggest problems with a startup - if there are 10 engineers, where can you get promoted to? The converse problem at a large company, there are plenty of places to get promoted to but getting recognized is often hard. I've…
It's growth rate that matters, not size. I interned at a medium-sized (~150 employees) consulting firm in college. It was a pretty relaxed and functional atmosphere work-wise, but it would've been a career dead-end. It was far too easy to get pigeonholed into a single contract for a couple years and not learn anything.
Re: Why to Join a Startup After Graduating
#36In the bay area this seems an increasingly irrelevant question (join a startup vs. big company), compared to grads deciding between joining and startup and starting a startup. I'd be curious to see more discussion on that pros/cons surrounding that decision for new grads.
Totally. This is definitely something I'm seeing on the East Coast as well (Although at a lower rate than those deciding between startup and big co.) The advice I've generally been given is to start a company as soon as possible, because nothing can prepare you for the world of being a founder. In reality, my experience working for a startup has been incredibly useful in shaping how I think about starting my own comp…
Looking back from my first job after college, I feel I was relatively clueless right out of college.
But looking back from my startup after my first job, I was relatively clueless in my first job.
And looking back from my big-company job after my startup, I was relatively clueless in my startup.
I don't think this ever ends. Rather, you just become relatively less clueless compared to all the other nincompoops founding startups. Repeat often enough and maybe you can convince someone to give you lots of money.
Re: Why to Join a Startup After Graduating
#37Human beings are naturally divided into three different groups with different likelihood of risk-taking after graduating: 1. I can risk everything to be an entrepreneur. 2. I want to be an entrepreneur, but I'm not ready or I'm unsure to take the risk. 3. I just want a stable career and work as hard as I can. The first group will start their companies; the second group will join start-ups to learn what it takes; and…
And then there's people like me:
4. I just want to stay in the US any way I can.
Re: Why to Join a Startup After Graduating
#38Why not to join a startup after graduating: 1) Leverage (lack thereof): When you work for a larger player, you have established yourself as a person that the firm found acceptable. Having a big name company on your resume means that you were accepted (and lets be honest, for however bad people describe working at a large company, there are enough people who want to work there that it lends credibility). I've had coun…
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2623797 <-- a little bit longer discussion
Re: Why to Join a Startup After Graduating
#39I agree, though you do need to make sure you choose a good startup. There are still startups out there that view developers as interchangeable cogs, where you can end up with the worst of all worlds (no stable paycheck, no real autonomy, uninteresting work). One thing I did notice - it can be a little risky to spend a long time at a single startup that fails. I worked for a startup that did fail (and was a little cra…
I would love to move to Mission Beach, San Diego! Best surfing place I've ever been to [1]. However, I assume, that there is more interesting stuff going on in Silicon Valley. Right now, my plan for the summer is to couch surf around a bit in Palo Alto first. Then, if I find nice people I will offer them a small but fair monthly payment so I can use there kitchen and bathroom and hang up my hammok in the garden. Has…
The hammock idea would be great, up until the rain started.