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Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

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Re: Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

#341

Post by nostrademons »

nradov wrote: post #334
romeisendcoming wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd agree that most are but if you move into scientific computing startups the problem domain is much different and CI is a nice to have. It's much more about R&D.

If we agree that CI is nice, and it's essentially free, then why not have it?

It's not really free - for CI to be useful you usually need a test suite to run, particularly with the interpreted languages like Python that are commonly used for scientific or exploratory programming. Test suites are a waste of time when you can't define what the expected behavior is, and we're talking about a particular problem domain where the goal is to find the expected behavior.

Re: Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

#342

Post by nostrademons »

monksy wrote: post #324
nostrademons wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. If the technology involved in your software startup basically involves putting a web or mobile app in front of a Rails/Django/Node appserver in front of a RDBMS or equivalent NoSQL database, and the primary business questions are "What data do we need to store, and how do we present it to the user?" then getting your CI up is important. This was a large fraction of viable startups from 2005-2013, so it certainl…

Just because you change the acronyms doesn't mean that you can completely forget about CI/CD. It's still relevant. Even more so with the newer technologies. You'll probably use different build tools and testing tools. But everything else is still the same.

You will, and I'm certainly not objecting to the use of CI once you know what product you're building and what its architecture will look like. But the whole point of this discussion is that you don't know that in this phase of startup development. There is a non-trivial chance that you will have to swap out your entire tech stack or drop whole components from the product. Building extensive infrastructure around code that gets run 2-3 times and then deleted entirely is a waste of time.

Re: Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

#343

Post by ironchef »

jiveturkey wrote: post #41
ironchef wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good call. I was going to suggest they should be able to see: * preference stack * strike price * last valuation with board/investors If you can't get those, then unless the equity is just butter to you, walk .. as you don't really know what the comp looks like.

so are you saying you’ve ever been able to get those numbers? i never have.

Yup. If I can't then I'm treating the equity as $0 as I don't have a realistic view of what's happening.

Which _can_ be ok... if salary plus bonuses are high enough... then you're not betting on your horse to come in anyways, you're betting on putting your nose down and getting things done.

Re: Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

#344

Post by ironchef »

pge wrote: post #182
ironchef wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good call. I was going to suggest they should be able to see: * preference stack * strike price * last valuation with board/investors If you can't get those, then unless the equity is just butter to you, walk .. as you don't really know what the comp looks like.

if the company won't share the preference stack with you, look up the total amount of capital the company has raised (or ask the question that way - that may be more likely to get an answer). In most cases, the preference stack = total capital raised.

I _think_ you mean most cases preference stack is _at least_ total capital raised... and therein lies the rub... if you have some latecomers coming in at 1.5 or 2x that drastically affects payouts.

Re: Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

#345

Post by walshemj »

kevhsu wrote: post #267
walshemj wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you can do the sell some stock to buy the rest thing Nil Paid I think its called. And tax wise it can work out better as you don't pay income tax of the shares sold to buy the others - this is scenario dependant.

it's a startup. your stock is not liquid.

You only do it when there is a liquidity event

Re: Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

#346

Post by monksy »

nostrademons wrote: post #342
monksy wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because you change the acronyms doesn't mean that you can completely forget about CI/CD. It's still relevant. Even more so with the newer technologies. You'll probably use different build tools and testing tools. But everything else is still the same.

You will, and I'm certainly not objecting to the use of CI once you know what product you're building and what its architecture will look like . But the whole point of this discussion is that you don't know that in this phase of startup development. There is a non-trivial chance that you will have to swap out your entire tech stack or drop whole components from the product. Building extensive infrastructure around co…

If you've started building software that you're going to have scrap that quickly, your problem isn't with the tools. You've messed up big time with planning. Either way, you're still going to need CI/CD.

Re: Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

#348

Post by hycaria »

quaunaut wrote: post #71
hycaria wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any idea of the average (for the personal part of it) ? For a EU to US move ? With like 5 years of experience ?

It's worth noting that relocation expenses don't change too much depending on experience. They generally average around $10,000 from my experience, but it isn't paid out in advance, but usually as a reimbursement. Some companies will give you a card to do it on as a means of not having to be reimbursed, but even that's rare.

Thanks for the info.
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