I wish people would stop calling new businesses "startups". It's just a new business.
Want to found a startup? Work at one first
141–150 of 156 posts
Re: Want to found a startup? Work at one first
#142Founder 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 a…
I would have been in this camp, except I would not have said the next role would be stepping-stone to founderdom.
The main thing I learned is that I never, ever, EVER, want to start my own company, and actually never want to work in a company with fewer than 30 people again. Maybe seeing the stress and the actual type of work that makes up the work of an early stage founder (or indeed employee) is quite off-putting for people. I don't see that as a bad thing either.
Re: Want to found a startup? Work at one first
#143"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…
The reality requires balance. For example, in university courses, prerequisites are required and enforced for good reason.
People try all the time to learn calculus with a weak foundation in precalculus, and they really struggle unnecessary. People also try to learn physics with a weak foundation in mathematics, with similar results. I would argue that the same is true for software development. You can develop bad habits (e.g. not using a style guide at all) by not doing initial prep work first first.
I agree that some people put things off indefinitely and end up in "tutorial hell," and for them it's better to err to going right to doing. But it's not always the case, and sometimes educational opportunities (e.g. getting work experience before starting a company) can really increase your skills.
Re: Want to found a startup? Work at one first
#144No
Re: Want to found a startup? Work at one first
#145Founder 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 a…
I think a lot of people are allured by the idea of starting a startup and it shows in your numbers.
Where as "natural" founders are allured by "an idea" and decide the best way to push forward on this idea will be through startup org(in terms of freedom, financing => obtaining more people, interfacing with users of the idea etc).
Re: Want to found a startup? Work at one first
#146I'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…
>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.
Learning what not to do is not an effective use of time.
Re: Want to found a startup? Work at one first
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 n…
> 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 an…
What position were you in that you worked closely with the marketing team and the angel investors?
I was a dev, so I never interacted with either of those groups closely. And when I started my own startup our dev doesn't really interact with marketing and has never met our investors.
Re: Want to found a startup? Work at one first
#148I'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…
Agree with the "what not to do" not being valuable (and that's most startups). You can read that in HN comments every day. Sure you can learn "I must not do X or my devs will feel shitty and leave", but what is the answer to "how can I keep my top performers happy and growing so they don't leave and instead make the company a rocketship?"
What I really want to know is how to make a buddying startup a high growth startup. And only a tiny amount of companies can give you that, and only if you are working in leadership roles.
Re: Want to found a startup? Work at one first
#149I'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…
Anti know-how can be a pretty good teacher as well. 18 months at a terribly run startup showed me all things not to do when I started my own.
Re: Want to found a startup? Work at one first
#150"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…
The reality requires balance. For example, in university courses, prerequisites are required and enforced for good reason. People try all the time to learn calculus with a weak foundation in precalculus, and they really struggle unnecessary. People also try to learn physics with a weak foundation in mathematics, with similar results. I would argue that the same is true for software development. You can develop bad ha…
> The reality requires balance.
Agreed.
> ...university courses, prerequisites are required and enforced for good reason.
Perhaps, but see also this article and discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32497780
> I would argue that the same is true for software development.
One can learn best practices without having to work at a startup / tech shop / MANGA. Besides, software development isn't the only skill required, there's likely a lot to learn but not enough time. With most upstarts, timing is more crucial than most other learnable factors, because you can never rollback time.