When to join a startup

I seem to learn the same lesson again and again from all the press about startups and my own experience (both as an employee in many and CEO/Founder in another). If you join the startup for the money (doesn't matter if you mean salary or equity), you're going to have a bad time. But if you expect to get experience, career and professional growth out of it, you can get pretty awesome results regardless of how successful startup turns out to be.

The first day (actual founder) or the day before the papers are for the A round are officially signed. These are the actual and only correct answers.<p>If you are the founder you get the best deal overall on expected value.<p>If your offer is generated before the A Round closes, you can negotiate equity at a pre-A-round valuation, but you are never exposed to any pre-A-round risk, and you can negotiate a post-A round salary that is contingent on the round closing.

Coding jobs have about a 2 year half-life. If they have enough funding to pay you for 2 years, regardless of whether or not they succeed, then it is as stable as any job, so just take the paycheck and do the work.<p>Any job that doesn&#x27;t have 2 years of reasonable stability need to be evaluated by your passion for the project. Do you want to take on personal risk because you believe in the project? Are you willing to lose money over it? Are you willing to lose time over it, and be broke at the end? Does this project improve the world, and do you want the work to be done even if you do not personally gain from it? Positive answers to those questions may lead you to join up.<p>But if you join a startup because you hope to get rich from it, you are gambling. There is nothing wrong with that choice, but you should see it for what it is - gambling your time for a small chance at future money.

This should be titled &#x27;When to join an externally funded startup&#x27;.<p>It&#x27;s a whole different ballgame if you join one that&#x27;s actually making a profit and doesn&#x27;t need someone else&#x27;s cash. Get in as early as you can, if you like the idea and can see it&#x27;s got longevity.

This is a really great article. I&#x27;ve been asked several times about the right moment to join a startup, but truth to be told, it really depends a lot on your expectations. Do you want to join a super early stage company and do whatever is needed or do you prefer to join a funded and work on a very specific role. Important questions here:<p>1. What are your expectations? 2. Are you a generalist or a specialist? 3. Do you want to work in a small room with two or three guys with a pay check? 4. Do you want to join a more established startup, but have less impact?<p>Make sure you understand the pros and cons of each option!

Great article. Best time to join: either as a founder, or post the Oracle acquisition!<p>If you&#x27;re going to take a risk, may as well maximise the risk&#x2F;reward and be (co) founder. In the mean time enjoy a well-paying job you enjoy in a space that you&#x27;d like to disrupt; learn on the job, build your network, then leave to found the startup that will disrupt your previous employer...

Generally, fairly accurate.<p>One word of warning - It would be nice if most startups became happy &quot;CEO-on-Forbes&quot; unicorns at round C, but not all do. I&#x27;ve seen a startup take a handfull of millions into Round F.<p>Which is of course, rather much the flunk round. And a lot of very health companies continuing to raise many small series rounds.<p>I think most people know this - but don&#x27;t equate funding stage <i>or</i> amount of money raised with startup success. A better gauge would be paying customers and while you can&#x27;t often get a feel for burn rate, find out as much as you can.<p>All being said, I&#x27;ve had some good educational times on slowly sinking ships too.<p>Sometimes the product is a little bit ahead of it&#x27;s time.

&gt; one two-hundredth, or 0.005% of the company<p>I&#x27;ll take the former, please.

Yes, I&#x27;m missing the point (and I did enjoy the post!) but this: <i>After 5 years, the company has raised £100m at a £1bn valuation.</i><p>Has any recent British tech company&#x2F;startup ever had such a raise? (Boo.com did but that was 99.)

&gt; part of me imagines a group of MBAs sitting around watching Justin Timberlake play Sean Parker, thinking that actually a billion dollars would be pretty cool.<p>My experience is that MBAs looking for money go into corporate roles, not startups. Around me it have been the more idealistic ones that join or start a startup, and for very different reasons than getting rich. e.g. feeling that they can be more valuable here than in corporate, wanting to create something new, etc. (all the normal reasons for start-ups, MBAs are no different)<p>disclaimer: I have an MBA, and I did apply to Mondo (did not work out, but no hard feelings), and I usually don&#x27;t daydream about making a billion dollars

This is more like &quot;what it&#x27;s like to join a startup at various stages&quot;. Perhaps the implicit lesson is to match what you&#x27;re looking for to different stages?<p>In any case, this is changing all the time. The seed-stage startup in 2016 might be three or four people from all over the world, working over Slack.

I joined as second employee after angel funding (seed stage) and a few months before the first VC funding and got about 0.5% equity. After a series C this went down to less than 0.3%... I didn&#x27;t know anything about stock options before joining, don&#x27;t you think I should have negotiated for more? This article says I should have got about 3% when I joined

Great read, I especially liked the mum references.

The decision of joining a startup should not be money return. It is a gamble. You use your stable salaries in return of dream and success. Pursue a dream is always expensive but when you get old, you will have a story to tell.

Could it be more precise!? :)

Join if they give you what you want. Same as with every company...<p>Want to work from home? Ask them. Most normal&#x2F;bigger corps won&#x27;t let you do this. A Startup probably will.<p>It&#x27;s also good if you like green field projects, haha.

These are great definitions of the stages of a &quot;startup&quot; but I&#x27;m missing the point here?<p>Also, at some point, does a startup not become a company?

Spot on our trajectory for the last two years