Closed my company, roast my resume
Ex-founder/CEO of VC-backed startup, raised $15M, got company to $4M ARR, ended up selling for pennies on the dollar. I’m realizing that translating founder experience into something that resonates in the job market is a lot tougher than I expected. It's like there’s a gap between the journey I’ve been on and the story they’re ready to hear, and I’m struggling to bridge that. I’ve been able to get some interviews through referrals but exactly zero by submitting my resume (including reaching out to recruiters and the works) Targeting Senior Manager/Director roles, mainly Strategy & Operations. [Think L6/L7 Amazon] Would appreciate any feedback on my resume. Thank you!! YOE: 13 years TC: 0 #jobs #resume #resumereview #tech #jobsearch #career #operations #strategy
Honestly ur good bro
What's the story behind selling for cheap? And you will intimidate the mediocre middle management for sure. Your best bet is trying to find partnerships/operations upper management position in another funded startup.
This. Most mildew management will get intimidated. Best bet - reach out to a founder CEO who will emphatize with your situation
Follow this suggestion at least.
15M $ ARR? That’s like a company worth hundreds of million dollars. What did you sell it for and why ?
The guy is probably hiding that those revenues were achieved with hopelessly negative profitability. Like, buying iPhone for $1k from Apple and selling them to other businesses for $300.
We did $15M in marketplace GMV, I can see how calling it ARR is confusing/misleading. Take rate was around 25% so ~$4M revenue
Looking at the resume, the impression is : the guy somehow strategically managed to mess up a company with 15 million revenue down to the complete failure. And now looking for a new company to crash to the ground with incompetence. Seriously, at 15 million annual revenue and 5 million expenses (expected for a successful business) you should be drowning in money and have company evaluation of around 200-300 million. And not looking for a new job :). However, if it was 15 million revenue with 100 million annual expenses, then it’s no wonder you are looking for a job.
We did $15M in marketplace GMV, I can see how calling it ARR is confusing/misleading. Take rate was around 25% so ~$4M revenue
Add some stuff around managing: team sizes, hiring, firing, growing people, giving feedback, accountability,… Also, maybe be more selective in the experience highlights to target specific roles. Might be tough since so much of your experience is at one small place where you were a founder. Hard to know that you can play the “big corp game”.
Thanks for the feedback! Any other tips on how to show I can play the "big corp game"? (assuming I can honestly)
Focus on influence - big corp is all about building credibility and influence skills. You rarely get to play the “do what I say, I’m the boss” card.
Something doesn't add up. $15M ARR/exit. Searching for sr. Mgr roles. Something doesn't add up
We did $15M in marketplace GMV, I can see how calling it ARR is confusing/misleading. Take rate was around 25% so ~$4M revenue
How did you become a VP of sales straight out of college?
I didn’t. Last bullet point speaks about progression within the company. It was just too long to break it down to three separate positions
You should not ask for advice from the people who never found a business on their own before here. Different experience has different perspective. Unless you really want to completely turn your entrepreneur mindset to be more a corporation employee one.
Actually, this is exactly the audience he should be asking for advice from. He wants to join a company,, and is asking for resume advice.
That is the “unless…” part from my comment. Still stand true if he has different purpose here. He needs to be clear with himself what he wants first.
From your original post before editing, not knowing the difference between marketplace gmv and revenue is a bit disconcerting
To an ex-entrepreneur turned corporate - who cares. All I see is he did a thing. Building something from nothing is REAL hard. That’s what the guy brings to the table. I’d maybe ask the question in an interview, but wouldn’t expect someone to put their reasoning for closing down the company on their resume.
No one is disputing building something is hard The point of OPs post is that OP is having trouble translating founder experience to landing a job Part of the responsibility of a founder is to understand your business and business equation. You are supposed to be the person that is most fluent in describing your business. Not knowing the difference between GMV and revenue is a red flag. It can make the difference between getting hired or not, and more importantly convincing investors or acquirers that you are a founder of a company worth looking at. It seems OP had / has trouble with both.
I would say get rid of all the founder experience and just say you worked there as a senior engineer
+1
While this is brutal, it’s actually true. Since the company clearly failed, you don’t want to show up you were the entity primarily responsible for the failure :)