While this had a happy ending, can you imagine an alternate universe where the founders for whatever reason decided not to hire the guy? Leading him on for several months, making him jump through hoops and then not hiring him would have been a huge waste of time and energy, esp considering they seem pretty disinterested through most of the process. People sometimes greatly undervalue the value of a polite 'no'.
How to hack your way into a hot startup with no experience
31–40 of 81 posts
Re: How to hack your way into a hot startup with no experience
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
OK. Now I'm curious. What would be the sort of things you would try to corner me into?
I am fond of design questions, both on the receiving and asking end. I drill down until you take a branch that I would distinctly choose not to. Then I press you for reasons. E.g., why would you write your web app in C++? edit: Note that someone who is genuinely very close to me in opinions won't challenge me in ways that really produce a useful diversity of opinion. They would, however, likely agree with my sense of…
>this might lead to a collective blindspot where a deeper problem is overlooked. Being able to professionally disagree and then work together to form a final result is very important.
I agree with you. I just don't think phone screens are a good place for these discussions. I used the tactic above just to get through the initial phone conversation where I had a high degree of uncertainty of who I'm talking to. :)
Re: How to hack your way into a hot startup with no experience
#33Amazing how much free consulting work companies are getting through job interviews these days... It almost makes you think a lot of companies now have an incentive to pretend to be hiring just to get this input. By the way, if anyone's interested, I posted a cpl days ago to no avail the following breakdown of job openings results in select cities by select keywords via Indeed.com's API (I'm new to python and having s…
The article makes Vidyard and particularly "Mike" look pretty bad and lacks perspective and empathy. The fact that he's OK with ignoring personal communications just because they look like a "cover letter" speaks volumes. I don't buy the "I'm busy" argument. I've emailed people like Mark Cuban and received prompt replies in the past.
Worse, he interviewed the guy and made him do free, unpaid work to further prove himself, and then ignored him for four weeks after he did the task! Absolutely pathetic. I can only think about my friend's startup cleaning company: he has prospective cleaners clean an apartment as part of their interview to see their cleaning skills, but he pays them the standard hourly rate ($20/hr+) for their time. And he follows up. And he doesn't have any funding himself yet.
Posts like this one just reinforce and validate this kind of behavior in the startup community. Just because you're a "busy startup guy" doesn't mean you get to ignore labor laws and have free reign to be a prick. Just FYI, having people work for free is almost always illegal if they're not receiving academic credit.
All people deserve to be treated with common decency. It doesn't matter how bad the economy is, how new the employer is, and how inexperienced the applicant is. As soon as we deem it acceptable and in fact encourage the abandonment of these principles and laws, we descend into a third world black market business culture. I wouldn't be surprised if the next boulder we crash into on this slippery slope involves applicants bribing their way into jobs: "In exchange for letting me work for you for free, I'm willing to "fund the overhead" of my training by providing you with a monthly stipend of $500/month during my free labor period!"
Re: How to hack your way into a hot startup with no experience
#34Is this the end of the current startup era? How did we get from "Make stuff people want" to the current obsession with funding, SEO and "Growth Hackers" (!). This sounds like the same sort of nonsense I was reading in January 2000. Just like the 90's tech boom, the community has become inward-looking, stale, and it's feeding on itself (c.f. this article, which isn't about how to start a company but to be hired by a "…
Not sure whether I've noticed this or not, but recently I've become strongly focused on startups that align value with their users. Traditional consumer startups are crap, get eyeballs, sell to advertisers "or something".
Screw that. If you aren't making something your users want to pay for, start making something else.
That said, I think SEO and "growth hacking" can be very useful AFTER you get the basic "We provide value to our users" thing solved.
Re: How to hack your way into a hot startup with no experience
#35"Launch something"
That's all you need to get a startup to pay for your time. Honest. Every time I launch something, emails start pouring in from people who are interested.
Forget everything else anyone says, just launch something.
Re: How to hack your way into a hot startup with no experience
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Working for free does not mean the work is worthless. This is just an insane idea. Let's say I volunteer building houses for people in the 3rd world, or I give free talks at my daughter's school, or I help some friends get their startup off the ground, none of these means they are worthless. This must be a cultural difference thing, but giving freely of your time for endeavors you believe in should not make you think…
> Let's say I volunteer building houses for people in the 3rd world, or I give free talks at my daughter's school, or I help some friends get their startup off the ground, none of these means they are worthless. You're right, but the difference is perspective. In those situations, the "employers" expect the work to be free, because they are "paying" you in non-monetary ways (such as, continued or closer friendship).…
He was clearly #1, inexperienced. Which the job application said was OK as long as you were willing and able to learn as you go, so there is a clear narrative he's following: "let me prove that I can work myself into this role."
The side benefit is that even if he fails or works for free for a month or two he will have gained valuable experience that could get him a job elsewhere.
Re: How to hack your way into a hot startup with no experience
#37"Launch something" That's all you need to get a startup to pay for your time. Honest. Every time I launch something, emails start pouring in from people who are interested. Forget everything else anyone says, just launch something.
Exactly. You don't need anyone's permission to make something. If you hire someone who's launched something you know you won't have to do a lot of handholding, versus someone who's going to "work for free".
Re: How to hack your way into a hot startup with no experience
#38Amazing how much free consulting work companies are getting through job interviews these days... It almost makes you think a lot of companies now have an incentive to pretend to be hiring just to get this input. By the way, if anyone's interested, I posted a cpl days ago to no avail the following breakdown of job openings results in select cities by select keywords via Indeed.com's API (I'm new to python and having s…
The article makes Vidyard and particularly "Mike" look pretty bad and lacks perspective and empathy. The fact that he's OK with ignoring personal communications just because they look like a "cover letter" speaks volumes. I don't buy the "I'm busy" argument. I've emailed people like Mark Cuban and received prompt replies in the past. Worse, he interviewed the guy and made him do free, unpaid work to further prove him…
You're right - I did lack perspective and empathy.
I never thought I'd be the busy guy without time or energy to filter through and respond to every application we get.
The problem that I've encountered is that at This post is designed to open the perspective of myself, the "busy startup guy" as well as Amar, the "I want to be a part of a startup guy".
The idea is that everyone should go above and beyond to get noticed. Most people don't. If you don't really really really think you can make an impact in my business (and haven't shown me so via initiative) how can I really know that you're not just another tire-kicker?
Remember, a seed-stage startup is on an egg-timer. Every minute needs to be productive and every conversation needs to create value. We need to pick and choose our battles wisely.
Re: How to hack your way into a hot startup with no experience
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, some really big mistakes... I've similarly been on the job hunt for my first job recently You sound a little over confident of 'the right way to look for a job' for someone who's only just getting your first job now.
Thank you. I've been researching job search related stuff for the past ~4 months (still stuck in a limbo during that time) and so I would say I know more about the job search than most people :) Especially those that have been able to just get a job out of university (I don't have a degree) or who are already so wanted that they don't really have to worry about these things. What I pointed out are mistakes whether yo…
4 whole months? You definitely just doubled down on overconfidence. It's only one job search, you have no idea which lessons apply generally and which are only true for the current ecosystem. Read about the Dunning-Kruger effect and avoid coming off as overconfident at all costs, when interviewing young developers/technical people that is a giant red flag in my experience. It's almost a deal breaker for me.
Also: No, that's not an Ad Hominem (which is the term you want to use rather than DH1 if you want to sound like you know what you are talking about by the way, it's a classic logical fallacy)
Re: How to hack your way into a hot startup with no experience
#40Does anyone actually read and care about this inane bullshit?