9 yrs of product design experience from Apple, unicorn startups and Facebook. Should I leave a design lead offer from YoutubeTV for a head of design offer at a 30 person startup in private data verification space with a strong team and culture? base comp is slightly lower than what I have at Facebook. Also, 7+ final design onsites in next 2 weeks but the deadline with this startup is Sunday. So I’ll be leaving behind the last rounds of 10 very strong unicorn startups. What should I do?
Is the industry for the startup and its challenges inspiring to you? To me, it seems like product design is not a super important piece of that kind of business. And the way a product like that would grow...I don't immediately see interesting challenges compared to what you could do elsewhere. If you're in it for the longterm stock value, have you done in depth analysis of the industry, the market, the founders and other leaders, the business plan, etc? What does the lead investor have to say about the company and is that investor successful at picking winners early stage? If you're just feeling like you want to work at an early stage startup for the excitement, fun, stock, and change of pace, then I'd advise you to be patient and find the right one. When you do, it'll just sing to you and you won't be able to stop thinking about it. If you're taking that much of a risk, it should be a company you'd work for for free.
Thank you! The company is called Truework, and I do see a lot of potential for design to help elevate their consumer trust with their private sensitive data. But yea huge risk for sure.
No doubt design could elevate the experience in that situation, but thinking long term about the evolution of the product, are there really challenging problems to solve? How much will you grow? How much will you be respected?
I say take the dip in TC if it means becoming the head.