Evaluating startup offers

Gonna add my personal .02 based on multiple startup experience.<p>Enjoy the ride. Most startup fails, so everything in evaluating an offer has to take that in account.<p>Make sure you bargain for a great experience to put in your resume for the next gig. Make sure something survive out of the startup when it fails, like keeping a blog on the side talking about your challenges is a great way to ensure your portfolio endures.<p>When you evaluate your stock options, the right ratio to which consider it is.. zero. If you are a provileged employee and truly believe in the project, go for equity. Company will be limited lyability anyway early stages and stock options will likely never vest.<p>If you are a side project junkie, try to bargain stock options for a relaxed non compete so you can keep your midnight coding exploits profitable.<p>Make sure the tech stack is marketable. Both in technology terms (java node whatever) but also in direcion: intelligence and analytics go always well on any resume.<p>Do try and engage anyone involved in the startup, from ceo to customers. Idea can be had for free and learning a businnes space with it&#x27;s workings and pain points is always worth it. Be helpful to anyone and grow your network. You gonna need that always.<p>Last, don&#x27;t let the starup consume your life. It&#x27;s just not worth it.

I wouldn&#x27;t worry too much about trying to estimate a startups chances unless your a domain expert. The more literature you read the more likely it is you&#x27;ll begin to be over&#x2F;under-estimate their chances of success.<p>In my experience the challenge of working in any stage of organisation is fighting its disfunction. If you love your field of work, then this will be likely your only nemesis. A prime benefit of working in a startup is your relative power to do this. So embrace it and use it as a place to learn how to get stuff done. This will serve you well wherever you eventually end up and expose you to people and functions well outside your domain.<p>Given that:<p>1) Is what they are proposing reasonably sensible? Ask someone normal if unsure :P<p>2) Is it interesting to you?<p>3) Do they seem like intelligent, friendly people?<p>4) Challenge them on a product&#x2F;architecture decision they have made and see how they respond.<p>5) Ask how much runway they have and be comfortable with it<p>Finally, you only live once, take a chance, really try to do something new. When your there, speak up. If your lucky you&#x27;ll have a good experience with good people and learn a hell of a lot.

I think the major thing this post fails to emphasize is how the CEO and other executives&#x2F;managers interact. I would specifically ask:<p>1.) Tell me about a situation where you disagreed with your team, but trusted them and was convinced. 2.) Tell me about another one of those. (There&#x27;s always one canned answer)<p>In other words: Who can tell the CEO &quot;No&quot; and do they know when to listen and when to push. If the CEO doesn&#x27;t know how to do that well, I think the company is doomed, and it&#x27;s incredibly hard to do well.

I feel like I just got content-market&#x27;d. They get me every time!

Bottomline is, always protect the downside. Startups do offer a shot at becoming rich, but they are more likely to fail than not, so in the event of the business going down you still want to show something for the years spent.<p>Basically: make sure to get a fair salary down the road, or at least make sure you learn something that you otherwise couldn&#x27;t (and makes it easier to find a better paying job in the worst-worst case scenario).

I&#x27;d add &quot;is the technology they use interesting&quot; which for me is similar to their &quot;is the team worth it&quot;. If I assume the company will fail but I got to hack some Lisp for a couple of years instead of writing Java code that might be worth something (languages picked just to make the point).

I think the &#x27;you have more to lose&#x27; advice is wrong. It&#x27;s still a sellers market for technical talent. As long as you&#x27;re getting paid reasonably and working on interesting things, you&#x27;ll be fine after N months at a failed startup.