“I think startup employees should re-evaluate the growth trajectory of their startup every year.”
At a bare minimum. Probably more often.
How to Choose a Startup to Work for by Thinking Like an Investor
111–120 of 154 posts
Re: How to Choose a Startup to Work for by Thinking Like an Investor
#112the best advice I can offer is to join a team that has deep pockets. the biggest reason my company succeeded is that they had cash to burn. sure, they were smart. they moved quickly, they dropped failing products instead of holding on to them. they made consistently good decisions. but they also were able to sink millions into the company's products and promotion thereof without going under for years, long enough to stumble upon a hugely profitable model.
no idea how to assess the size of a company's pockets. maybe one that has a founder who has already had a successful exit. every other attribute of a company is basically fortune telling.
Re: How to Choose a Startup to Work for by Thinking Like an Investor
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry have to delete these, not comfortable with these comments sitting on the internet forever.
Sorry have to delete these, not comfortable with these sitting on the internet forever.
dude, please don't participate if you're gonna do this. It wrecks the conversation for everybody else reading later.
Re: How to Choose a Startup to Work for by Thinking Like an Investor
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tons more lucky than most. My last startup job misclassified me when funds got tight. A friend of mine who joined later never got paid (good luck filing a wage claim in WA state if L&I’s system still thinks you’re a contractor).
Perhaps also luck, but I’ve managed to have a spidy sense for when things are going the wrong way, and got out / moved on before it got that bad.
What are some of the signs/symptoms that trigger your spidy sense?
Re: How to Choose a Startup to Work for by Thinking Like an Investor
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
Startup employees could pool their risk by creating their own shared investment fund which held all their shares/options in trust and spread out the winnings. The reward would be far less but more predictable. I doubt many would have the foresight to commit to something like this.
Neat idea, but how would you choose who qualifies to join?
Probably the same way a VC chooses startups.
Re: How to Choose a Startup to Work for by Thinking Like an Investor
#116Which scratch-off ticket should I buy at the gas station?
Re: How to Choose a Startup to Work for by Thinking Like an Investor
#117The metaphor of early startup employee as investor seems really smart at first but is ludicrous in reality. It is physically impossible to choose a startup like a VC because you cannot diversify your portfolio like they can. VCs can sprinkle (relatively) small amounts of money across dozens or hundreds of startups. If one fails then the impact to the portfolio is negligible. In fact, VCs expect that most of their por…
Came to say this.
No one can predict with certainty which startups will fail and which won’t. If someone did there would be just one VC firm that grossly outperformed everyone else. The truth is you get the smartest people out there, make the most careful bets you can, and you still lose or break even 9 out of 10 times.
Anyone who is joining an early stage startup primarily to get rich has got their eye on the wrong prize. Join because you like the early stage craziness. Join because you care about the mission. Join to learn. If you want to get rich, work at Fang for 10 years. That’s a lot more certain.
Re: How to Choose a Startup to Work for by Thinking Like an Investor
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
Decades of experience has taught me that stock options are essentially wallpaper. Sure, if a company wants to give me options, I'll take them -- but they are in no way a substitute for real compensation, and I won't accept them in lieu of something real. That said, if a startup is doing something that really turns my gears and I like the company, then I'm absolutely willing to work for less pay in order to be a part…
Something I never understood about this attitude ("... then I'm absolutely willing to work for less pay ...") is: why there are almost no examples of such behavior in other highly paid professions, such as physicians or lawyers? Very rarely you'll find physicians saying "I really want to become a brain surgeon, I'll happily take 40% less than my market rate". You'll certainly find physicians doing volunteering, but t…
Doctors pick specialties and the balance of $, time, stress, location, marvel, and giving back all factor in. Think city dermatologist vs small town pediatrition.
Source: married to an md phd, meaning ~half the potential salary is both forgone and that time is used to be in public labs solving cancer. Hours still stink tho and every day is life and death, so aggrieved programmer discussions of hours, burnout, compensation, and ability to own equity come off sounding similar to how bankers do. Clearly real for those living it, but odd from the outside.
Re: How to Choose a Startup to Work for by Thinking Like an Investor
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about: Doctors Without Borders? Docs who enter general practice in underserved areas rather than metropolitan dermatology? Legal pro bono work, or most prosecutors?
You might have a fair point. I am, however, empirically convinced (but have no data) that the examples you are quoting are a very small portion of their respective professional market population, whereas, always empirically, I'd say that the amount of software professionals who willingly choose to be underpaid purely because of their attraction to some kind of work is much much higher, probably in the 30%+.
Someone doing pediatrics might have been better off skipping med school and being a nurse practitioner, or a taxi programmer. Or when going through it, specializing instead in dermatology. Now imagine your town without any pediatricians and GPs and emergency staff ;-)
Re: How to Choose a Startup to Work for by Thinking Like an Investor
#120Best risk-reward is VP or SVP level at Series C or D company which gets you options for 1-2% of the company... switch every 18 months to diversify and build a portfolio but negotiate 10 year exercise window on your options when you leave rather than the standard 90 days. Thousands of execs doing that around Silicon Valley working through Daversa and other executive recruiters (who themselves get $85K-$100K per execut…
Or you could just take a non startup job for higher pay and buy 0.1% of a bunch of late stage startups on EquityZen or Equidate. No need to wait 10 years...
Or just stick it in publicly traded cloud companies: https://www.bvp.com/strategy/cloud-computing/index