If you were to go back and evaluate your offer again, what would you have done? Examples: - Negotiate higher base or equity - Negotiate something else like wfh or perks - Investigate founders and team - Investigate the business plan - Asked about the tech stack Planning to join an early stage startup soon and looking for some advice. Hope to hear about your personal experience. Edit: Ppl are answering âearly stage vs. unicorn/big company?â But the question is more âhow do I evaluate this startup and offer?â
Interview some of the team 1-on-1 over their feelings about their leaders. Twice I did not do that and twice I paid for it.
This is a good suggestion
Did you do it? Itâs always a strong sign when the leader volunteers employees for you to interview post-offer. Terrible sign if they object or act like youâre imposing on them.
People have to have a good reason not to collect cash money from FANG these days; figure out what that reason is
So if the reason is you want more challenges and you are excited about the product, how does that help? You know this info beforehand and thatâs why you interviewed I the first place. The question is more about how you can surface red flags
I guess Iâm saying that it has to be a really compelling vision, have a reasonable chance of success, the company has to have its shit together, the technical stack has to be thought through, etc. Lack of any of those (or severe weakness / inability to figure it out) is in itself a red flag. Maybe this is begging the question đ
Why would you work for a startup? I understand that Amazon burns people out so if that's the case for you, why not work for Airbnb, Stripe, Lyft, Twilio, Square, Bloomberg, Google etc instead?
Impact, challenge, product, domain, level, etc. so many reasons
"Level" is a bullshit reason that will not steer any competent recruiter or hiring manager for a future role. Being more interested in the work and product than that of any major tech company role are the only legitimate reasons to join a startup imo, in light of the comp and WLB sacrifice relative to big companies besides Amazon. Impact is what you make of it. At a big company, small changes and features can have big revenue upsides. At a startup, massive features can have zero effect on revenue and in the best case, they still won't affect it as much as at a large company. 5x growth from 100 to 500 users and $0 revenue is only cool if you really love the work
I always asked to talk to a sales exec from the team for 15 minutes, it's always met with a wtf surprise, but just asking them "why does your product sell", "what's the one thing blocking most deals" will help you judge how things will work out in the near future.
I've done it multiple times, started my own too. Had some success but def an uphill battle. It really depends on your personality. Are you scrappy? Does t excite you to do what it takes? Are you comfortable with failing hard, sometimes in the public eye via press? Where r u in your career? Just starting out and already having lots of exp is ideal. If uve hit ceilings in self-learning, startups won't be ideal (early ones).
I didnât quite understand the last part. Why arenât startups ideal if youâve hit the ceiling?
It's personal opinion, but I think you can learn on ur own to a certain point, at which you'll need some mentorship to get over the learning "hump" that's a bit tougher to find in an early startup environment. Hence why I think if you're just starting out (0-3 YOE) or very experienced (>7 YOE), startups r great because u can learn a lot as a newbie, or put ur experiences to the test as a semi-vet to see if u can actually help build a business.
Here are some tips I heard from others, and my own system: 1. Establish your limits. For me, that was mainly: time and money. How much am I willing to forgo, and for how long? The worst case scenario for a startup (esp founders and early employees) is not outright failure, but elusive success. One can keep on sacrificing, with the hope of growth that never happens. Have some time limit and limit on money time willing to lose. This can be your own money investing in, or loss of earnings because you're compromising on the pay. And pull the plug, jump ship if either of those limits are broken. 2. This is something I heard from a very successful founder. Have a fundamental, deep in the heart reason for why you want to do it. It is not to justify to anybody else, but yourself. In a startup, there will inevitably times when you're going to question yourself, second guess your decision. In those times, it helps to remember the deep in the heart reason and trudge on.
Very profound. I like it. I âfollowed my heartâ within Amazon and that led me to hell so now Iâm trying to âfollow my heart with some checklistâ
In this thread, people give op advice without answering his question.
To be fair, the subject and the first line of this post are asking two different things. The follow up questions also begin to tread into short form essay territory.
I wish I would have Negotiated more equity.
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Most start-ups fail. Have many one- on-one meetings with the leaderships. Then go with your gut feeling. Most often you would be right.
Thanks, most startups failing is already a given and hindsight is very powerful, so Iâd like to hear stories so I can at least do as much due diligence as I can