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Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

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Re: Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

#71

Post by quaunaut »

hycaria wrote: post #61
tudelo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm, I think relocation expenses are pretty standard, but not as high as they may need to be if you need to break a lease or something like that.

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.

Re: Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

#72

Post by latch »

Waterluvian wrote: post #13
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…

In the context of a startup, I would expect almost all of those to be disappointing. But maybe that's what you're hoping to see. In my opinion, if you're a start-up and you've got all those boxes checked, you're possibly doing the right things in the wrong order, and that's a red flag for me. What I hope to hear are responses like, "so this is how we're doing CI. It's awful, almost non-existent. But that's because at…

I would expect most to be disappointing too, and it's a good idea to avoid those.

Proper logging doesn't take more time, it just takes more discipline / giving a damn. People and companies that say:

    we don't have time to do it right
Almost always mean:

    we don't know how to do it right
Talent, not time, is the enemy of quality. (at some point that stops being true, but most companies (startups or not) are soooo far from that).

If we are talking about a really young/small startup and you're a senior person, then you need to have a discussion about it with whoever you answer to.

If we're talking about a really young/small startup and you're a jr person, you'll just learn a bunch of shitty habits.

If we're talking about an older/larger startup, then you have a problem.

Re: Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

#73

Post by mikestew »

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.

I see this advice bandied about, and I have to assume that I've just never hit on one of those companies, or there are somehow two classes of interview candidates. Because I'm 0-3. And, when I think about it, hell no I'm not handing a cap table to some senior dev candidate. Higher up the chain, maybe, but not some NCO[0] with a fancy title.

Taken another way, when companies refuse to give you the numbers to properly evaluate the potential value of equity, then you properly value it at zero and ask that salary be bumped up. And, yes, that works and much better than asking for numbers you'll never get.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-commissioned_officer

Re: Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

#74

Post by hartator »

jasode wrote: post #54
PacifyFish wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. The most common way to predict payout is to compare to other companies' exit valuations. E.g. "Oh, company X got acquired for $250 million. We do something similar. If I own .025% of the company, I'd make $62,500 if we exited at that valuation. Cool." It's important to be aware of dilution events so that you realize when you accept the offer that your .025% will be more like .008% if you're lucky enough t…

>It's important to be aware of dilution events so that you realize when you accept the offer that your .025% will be more like .008% But you're repeating the same error of prioritizing the wrong thing: dilution. What employees ultimately care about is their wealth calculation: shares_multiplied_by_price . Example of the type of math people actually care about: 0.008% (because dilutions) a $1 billion company is $80k 0…

A dilution event is always bad for the current stockholders. Of course getting investor money is a positive, but it can be a bad deal or the money can’t be wasted just leaving you with less overall ownership.

Don’t also forget you can have down rounds that can lower both your ownership and your share price.

Re: Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

#75

Post by [deleted] »

jasode wrote: post #8

>It is also important to note that early employees experience more dilution events. An example of a dilution event would be raising another round of funding. This is another reason why joining a company early should offer more equity. I disagree that it's important to note that early employees experience more dilution events. I know you're trying to educate but this type of advice unintentionally misinforms people an…

[deleted]

Re: Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

#76

Post by LaGrange »

aw1621107 wrote: post #52
weka wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You need experience and you have no other option to get experience. This was me and I paid for it. Right now I'm on week 8 of 30 hour weeks. It sucks.

I thought standard work weeks were 40 hours (at least in the US)? Are your work weeks normally shorter?

Even outside of US, 40h is standard, some places have 35 hour work week. 30 is less than 4 days a week, or 5x6h. I actually think that _might_ be more efficient _and_ healthier, but it's unusually little, I think it's a typo.

Re: Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

#77

Post by robhunter »

jasode wrote: post #54
PacifyFish wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. The most common way to predict payout is to compare to other companies' exit valuations. E.g. "Oh, company X got acquired for $250 million. We do something similar. If I own .025% of the company, I'd make $62,500 if we exited at that valuation. Cool." It's important to be aware of dilution events so that you realize when you accept the offer that your .025% will be more like .008% if you're lucky enough t…

>It's important to be aware of dilution events so that you realize when you accept the offer that your .025% will be more like .008% But you're repeating the same error of prioritizing the wrong thing: dilution. What employees ultimately care about is their wealth calculation: shares_multiplied_by_price . Example of the type of math people actually care about: 0.008% (because dilutions) a $1 billion company is $80k 0…

I also think this downplays the liquidation preferences that come with taking venture money that also brings dilution.

A "billion dollar company" that raised $500M with a 2x liquidation preference will put many fewer dollars into an individual employee's pocket than a $100 million company that only raised $10m.

Re: Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

#78

Post by welly »

weka wrote: post #50
seibelj wrote: post #42

The only valid reasons for working at a seed-stage / series A startup: You are a founder. They are working with a technology or in an industry that you specifically want to work with and it is very hard to work on it professionally, and doing side projects are infeasible. You need experience and you have no other option to get experience. You are getting a significant title bump that moves your career forwards. Inval…

> You need experience and you have no other option to get experience. This was me and I paid for it. Right now I'm on week 8 of 30 hour weeks. It sucks.

> 30 hour weeks. It sucks.

Sounds terrible

Re: Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

#79

Post by neolefty »

weka wrote: post #50
seibelj wrote: post #42

The only valid reasons for working at a seed-stage / series A startup: You are a founder. They are working with a technology or in an industry that you specifically want to work with and it is very hard to work on it professionally, and doing side projects are infeasible. You need experience and you have no other option to get experience. You are getting a significant title bump that moves your career forwards. Inval…

> You need experience and you have no other option to get experience. This was me and I paid for it. Right now I'm on week 8 of 30 hour weeks. It sucks.

30 hour weeks — Do you mean in addition to a regular full-time job?

Re: Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

#80

Post by toomuchtodo »

blktiger wrote: post #63
weka wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You need experience and you have no other option to get experience. This was me and I paid for it. Right now I'm on week 8 of 30 hour weeks. It sucks.

30 hour weeks? Don't most people work 40 hour weeks? My first job I worked 60 hour weeks for basically 2 years straight (average, we'd work a ton of hours for a month, then work normal for a week or two, then back up to a ton of hours) and I should have started looking sooner. Instead I waited until I was burnt out and got fired. Only took me two weeks to find a newer, better job where I didn't work more than 40 per…

Everyone should look for a new job sooner (don’t wait for burnout, don’t wait if you’re not being promoted or seeing comp increases, don’t wait for the promise of reasonable hours). Congrats on the soft landing, sorry to hear you burned out first.
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