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Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

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Re: Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

#231

Post by sanderjd »

gammateam wrote: post #174

the answer to every question on this list: "We are a private company and don't share this information." Outside of the room, the Engineering team laughs at your questions, Operations and the CEO give each other quizzical looks before laughing too, and they go on to the next candidate. You get smug satisfaction for not going with "THAT Company who cant answer simple questions", until a reminder about the rent payment…

Seeing this as the top comment, I expected the questions to be intrusive or silly, but I actually found them to be almost entirely the table stakes of what I'd want to know before joining a small private company that proposes to offset a lower salary offer with equity. You need these questions answered because it's a private company with no public disclosures you can look up!

Re: Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

#232

Post by apl002 »

latch wrote: post #4

I've been thinking about low-friction options for getting a sense of the engineering quality. I don't think I'm alone in thinking that technical debt and bad software development practices are a top concern. Being quite senior now, I'd feel comfortable asking: 1 - To see their CI dashboard 2 - To see a sample of their production systems stdout & stderr 3 - Asking to review a recent non-trivial commit (with the person…

open office plans are so terrible. I am job #3 now with them. Thank god for Bose QC35's but still its so unproductive

Re: Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

#233

Post by azernik »

gammateam wrote: post #174

the answer to every question on this list: "We are a private company and don't share this information." Outside of the room, the Engineering team laughs at your questions, Operations and the CEO give each other quizzical looks before laughing too, and they go on to the next candidate. You get smug satisfaction for not going with "THAT Company who cant answer simple questions", until a reminder about the rent payment…

This is not my experience. All of the private startups I interviewed for gave me this information when I asked during the final stage of the interview.

Re: Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

#234

Post by sroussey »

aecs99 wrote: post #186
gammateam wrote: post #174

the answer to every question on this list: "We are a private company and don't share this information." Outside of the room, the Engineering team laughs at your questions, Operations and the CEO give each other quizzical looks before laughing too, and they go on to the next candidate. You get smug satisfaction for not going with "THAT Company who cant answer simple questions", until a reminder about the rent payment…

So true! I've interviewed with several startups (about 50-60) in the past, over the course of 5 years. I had offers from most of them, while some of them rejected me after the interviews (for whatever reasons they had). Your comment is so close to reality (based on my interactions). Some laugh, some genuinely have no clue, some act arrogant (you can either join based on whatever limited information is provided, or le…

You must have been doing multiple interviews per month, every month, for those five years in order to get to the stage of getting an offer from a majority of the 60 companies. That sounds exhausting!

Re: Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

#235

Post by [deleted] »

jartelt wrote: post #227
convolvatron wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

most companies dont ever reach billion dollar evaluations. say they get sold for a reasonable $100M after 4 years. my 1% stake as a founding engineer should gross me $1M (house money). but since there were 3 rounds I generally end up with car money. I've been through this several times, and ended up with car money or nothing, and I dont think I'm alone. a warning to fresh grads that they may not end up retiring after…

But without those 3 rounds, your company likely wouldn't have gotten to the $100M valuation. Sure, if you can get a company to a $1B exit without raising any funding and avoiding any dilution, that is the best case. But, in reality most companies need to raise capital to grow. You accept dilution because the value of your shares should go up assuming the company is executing well and putting the capital to go use (i.…

[deleted]

Re: Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

#236

Post by adambyrtek »

jartelt wrote: post #224
8ytecoder wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why this comment is the top one right now. Has this been people's experience? I have asked all these questions (pretty much) and have gotten almost everything answered. Answers regarding revenues where a little obfuscate or a range was given.

Some startups are reluctant to tell you how many shares are outstanding in the company (happened to my wife). They say you get 100,000 options, but will not tell you the info needed to properly estimate the potential value of those options. In my wife's case, they just said to trust them that it was a valuable offer.

Not sure how this works elsewhere, but in the UK you can find public documents submitted by companies (including private ones) on the Companies House website and find out how many shares are outstanding (as well as some basic information about current shareholders).

Re: Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

#237

Post by vkou »

jiveturkey wrote: post #111
woolvalley wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens if your cap table is public? I would imagine if your wooing investors, they will get to see the cap table + more even if they never invest. And VCs talk to each other, so they can probably find out if curious from other VCs. Why all the secrecy?

I've only ever heard of one company with a public cap table. After a bit of googling, I found them again: https://open.buffer.com/buffer-open-equity-formula/ . EDIT: lol the same link is in TFA. The problem with a public cap table is that it amounts to a public salary database. Usually companies (and employees) don't want everyone to publicly know everyone else's salary. When people do jobs you don't understand (like…

> Usually companies (and employees) don't want everyone to publicly know everyone else's salary.

Actually, employees would love to know everyone else's salaries. This gives them a stronger negotiating position.

Re: Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

#238

Post by gammateam »

ipince wrote: post #207
gammateam wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and your lack of higher salary history will be a huge red flag to your rental, credit, auto, mortgage, and accredited investor application

nit: there's no such thing as an accredited investor application.

Some issuers need more robust information than a self certification

Getting this information is done in the form of an application

Re: Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

#239

Post by JumpCrisscross »

hobofan wrote: post #202
angersock wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true though. What's your counterargument? Tired memes can be tired because they're true.

If you want your startup to run for more than a year (= roughly the time the effects of technical debt start to kick in significantly in my experience), you need to find a good way how to handle technical debt, and keep it in check. I have seen my share of startups where a platform plagued with technical debt was the main limitation for growth, which is a very avoidable situation.

> If you want your startup to run for more than a year

I've never seen a start-up fail on account of technical debt. Re-engineering is expensive, but it means you have something worth re-engineering. I've seen lots of start-ups fail because money that should have been spent attracting and retaining users got burned on an elaborate engineering process.

Re: Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

#240

Post by tptacek »

gammateam wrote: post #174

the answer to every question on this list: "We are a private company and don't share this information." Outside of the room, the Engineering team laughs at your questions, Operations and the CEO give each other quizzical looks before laughing too, and they go on to the next candidate. You get smug satisfaction for not going with "THAT Company who cant answer simple questions", until a reminder about the rent payment…

It has not been my experience, coaching/advising a bunch of people through interviews with tech companies over the last few years, that most of this information is hard to get.
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