I want to get into startups, but I don’t know where to start

96 点作者 jaf12duke大约 11 年前

22 条评论

untog大约 11 年前

It’s no surprise that Alex mistakenly chose a big company over a startup straight out of school even though he was already interested in startups.That was not necessarily a mistake. As a fresh college grad (and particularly as an engineer) I'd argue that you are ill-equipped to judge a good startup opportunity from a bad one. There is absolutely nothing wrong with spending time at a large company, benefitting from their experience in graduate intake, learning a lot of good, sensible practises, then applying them to a startup.I've also recently become deeply skeptical of working for a startup as anything other than a founder or a very early employee. You don't benefit monetarily (low pay, bad stock options) and the work environment is frequently toxic and incredibly demanding. The only difference is you'll be making your bosses rich instead of making stockholders rich.

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angersock大约 11 年前

This is going to be rough, but here are some scattered thoughts in a Q/A format:I want to get into a startup, where do I start?Find a problem and sell a solution. Not rocket science.But I can't find a problem!Try getting outside of the hedges of your university and talking with normal people, business owners, and civil servants. I will give you a hundred bucks if you can't find anyone with something to bitch about.But I don't have a solution. How can I build a solution without being technical/having money/knowing a programmer?Where did I say anything about building solutions? Customers don't care about tech, they care about results. Find something somebody else has already done, maybe several somethings, and string them together, and sell them. Charge arbitrage--think of it as a laziness tax for the customer.I'm a programmer, and I have this neat idea to solve a problem I have.That's not a question, and besides, nobody gives a shit anyways.Well, what I mean is, how can I turn this into a business?You probably can't. You probably don't have the business/people skills yet--find somebody that does, and try to sell them on the idea. If that doesn't work, find somebody else. Once you've got one, get them to do the sales stuff.But my solution to this problem is awesome/elegant/clear/in Ruby!Again, nobody gives a shit. Go Tell HN or /r/peoplewhogiveafuck.~It's not some magical process making a startup/breaking into the ecosystem: find people who know more than you, and ask them questions--or even better, try to find a problem people will pay you to solve.Being a successful startup, now, that's a whole 'nother problem entirely.

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sayemm大约 11 年前

I've been working on startups more or less for most of my 20s (both as a founder and an employee at a venture-backed startup), I've learned a great deal from it, lost a lot from it and endured a lot of hardship, but I think the journey also transformed me and cut me out of wood (<a href="http://max.levch.in/post/36289276742/strengthen-your-startup-skeleton" rel="nofollow">http://max.levch.in/post/36289276742/strengthen-your-startup...</a>). So no regrets, I'm really excited about the future and I'm thinking long-term.I disagree with this post though, if I had to start all over again out of college... my recommendation would be to start a profitable, bootstrapped business. Build that up to 7-figures and be financially independent. You'll earn your first stripes way earlier than most, at much lower risk, and once you attain that black belt, then you'll be ready to consider swinging for the fences with a startup. And people around you will want to bet on you too with your track record.I'm 28yrs old now and that's my gameplan for the next few years. I'm tired of being poor.Worth reading: <a href="http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/06/paths-to-5m-for-a-startup-founder.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/06/paths-to-5m-for-...</a>

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jusben1369大约 11 年前

Maybe it's me but it feels like it should take some initiative to find work with a startup. Startups are (usually) more demanding than regular corporate jobs and require a higher degree of self sufficiency and initiative. You can end up at a corporate job and sort of realize over 6 - 12 months it's not for you and the whole experience and moving on is pretty soft. You'll know in about 4 - 6 weeks if the startup live is not for you and it'll be intense and emotional. So better it's not handed to you on a plate lest you make the mistake of signing up without enough critical thinking.

davidw大约 11 年前

It's a few years old at this point, but this book has a lot of good advice:<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Start-Small-Stay-Developers-Launching-ebook/dp/B003YH9MMI/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid=&tag=dedasys-20" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Start-Small-Stay-Developers-Launching-...</a>Between people like patio11 and Rob Walling, I'm pretty convinced that that sort of business is where it's at for people who don't want to do the whole VC style startup.

changdizzle大约 11 年前

Another point that should be brought up is to not overvalue yourself. I remember asking Justin (from JTV/exec/socialcam) in 2011 for some advice - I was working in the corporate world and was ready to make the jump to a startup. At the time I was an IT consultant and was looking for PM roles at Dropbox/Foursquare/insert hot startup here.He gave some much needed but harsh feedback, essentially asking "Why should they hire you? <hot startup of the month> has their pick of the litter, why would they gamble on someone unproven?" I've never really been told to aim lower, but it made me think -- if you really want to work at a startup, you'll start somewhere and prove yourself. Justin used the example of Aram, who started out as an office manager for JustinTV and ended up founding ZeroCater. I now work in BD and haven't looked back.Justin ended up writing a guest post for TechCrunch (I'd like to think partially inspired by me) here - <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/28/how-to-get-a-job-at-a-startup-if-you-have-no-skills/" rel="nofollow">http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/28/how-to-get-a-job-at-a-start...</a>

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elijahgold大约 11 年前

My problem is not finding a suitable role within a startup, it is getting the opportunity to interview. I have been in commercial real estate in NYC for the past three years. While my role is that of a financial analyst, my day-to-day responsibilities encompass brokerage, client relations, analytics, and research. I have applied to many different both early and late stage startups for both sales and business development roles and have had a very difficult time getting an interview. I once called a hiring manager that did not get back to me and asked why it was that I did not get the interview. I was told that my experience was not in tech sales; thus, they didn't think I would be a good fit. Do you have any advice for current members of the work force looking to break into the startup realm?

tedsanders大约 11 年前

Honest question: does it make sense for startups to hire inexperienced but smart people? Unlike big businesses, startups have less time to train/develop/mentor talent. They also usually have one focus: shipping product. Because of that, it seems better for startups to hire older, more experienced people who can be productive immediately. Of course there will be exceptions, but I think that on average big firms should hire fresh grads and startups should hire experienced workers. Is my thinking wrong?Edit: I suppose the main benefit of hiring smart inexperienced people over smart experienced people is that you can hire more of them for the same price. Plus, maybe inexperienced people tend to be young, and young people tend to have more hours to devote to work? Are there other benefits I'm missing?

rayiner大约 11 年前

On the issue of having a presence on campus: if you're not one of the really hot start-ups, putting up a fall recruiting booth at Harvard probably isn't going to sway those kids who have offers at Goldman or McKinsey as an alternative. However, it can be quite valuable to cultivate relationships with professors at local schools a rung or two down. There are brilliant kids at those schools who won't get the time of day from pedigree-conscious Wall Street, and professors are often quite well placed to identify them, based on interactions over a semester. It's a win for them, because they love being able to hook someone up with an inside lead on a good job, and it can be a great way for a start-up to get pre-vetted candidates.

johnrob大约 11 年前

Don't forget the most important skill for any startup employee: learn to pick the right companies to work for. It pains me to say this, but choosing the best company will pay off more than any other skill on that list (of course, you need those listed skills to get that job). Joining WhatsApp at an early stage probably led to a bigger payday than many founders see after successful exits.

reality_czech大约 11 年前

Start by working for a startup. Preferrably a doomed and mismanaged Web 2.0 startup on series F. That way you'll be embittered and cynical, and ready to negotiate correctly with your next employer, startup or not. Finally, finish up by writing fluff articles for TechCrunch about Elon Musk's new hairstyle. Congratulations, you are now "into startups."

donretag大约 11 年前

For me personally it is more like: I want to get into startups, but I don’t want to give up my large paycheck and 40 hour work week.The article does not address the money issue.

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personlurking大约 11 年前

"unless it was a large startup and the founder herself had gone to that school."Small gripe, but "herself"? Better as "and the founder had gone…" Even him/herself is a good option."Finally, our sector is on top and these young people want to come and join us."It's like saying "and these young women…"

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peter303大约 11 年前

The key points of the article are "Engineer" and "side projects". The engineers are an important and fun part of startups. Side projects are applications and code you can show people outside your company.One sugggestion is to look for public developer groups in your area in meetup.com. Type keywords "java" or "mobile" and you get a number of them. Go to those meetings and hear about interesting things people are developing either as part of a company or a hobby. Get involved in an open-source type project, generally on github. Just downloading, building and runnng such software is a significant hurdle. Probe it to see how it works. Maybe thre are a group of people in the project with lots of side projects they dont have time for. Many of these projects are weak on the testing and documentation side. So if you improve those aspectd, that shows understanding of such projects without interferring with core development.Then when you interview for a small company, you can show people what you have done. Maybe get references from others in the projects.More likely some of these projects may become a company. The company may support the open source with production strength versions, fill gaps, etc.

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dsk139大约 11 年前

Shameless plug. We are trying to solve this. We started off by doing 1-to-1 web development tutoring bringing clients from 0 to backbone apps & beyond.Recently, we got connected with two top CS students from "mid-tier" schools who were about to join large corporations in technology consulting roles. We were able to place them in some awesome startups in SF. And we were thrilled to have such a huge impact on the trajectory of their careers. We want to continue to do this.If you're interested in hiring top CS students, teaching web development, or if you're a current CS student please e-mail me. david@techcareerhq.com

Xdes大约 11 年前

>negotiations, there are plenty good books out there.Such as? As a programmer that can't negotiate a decent salary/consulting rate I would find this useful.

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mindcrime大约 11 年前

Interesting article, but I'd ignore the entire section labeled "Marketing". I don't buy any notion that "traditional marketing" is any less important today than it ever was, nor do I agree that "growth hacking" in any sense whatsoever replaces, or competes with, "traditional marketing". Growth Hacking (to the extent that it even has any meaningful definition) is just one part (or a couple of parts) of an overall marketing mix[1]. And anyone who doesn't know the term "marketing mix" should go take a class in... wait for it... "traditional marketing".Or to put it another way... if you're talking to a startup and the founders say anything like "we don't need marketing, we use growth hacking" then run away, as fast as you can.[1]: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_mix" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_mix</a>

brit200313大约 11 年前

Do you want to work at one or start one?Nothing is better than going to a hackathon or a Startup Weekend. My first Startup Weekend is where I caught the startup bug.If you want to work for one, check out Readyforce if you are a student or Angel.co if you are experienced.www.readyforce.com www.angel.co

basicallydan大约 11 年前

And we have nothing. Startups are nowhere to be found on campus colleges, maybe with the exception of Stanford and MIT.Here in the UK we have a startup job fair called Silicon Milkroundabout [1]. At the moment it's London-based, but it attracts a huge amount of college grads. I suspect they'll soon be moving into doing or taking part in job fairs at Universities around the UK, because they're growing pretty quickly at the moment.Maybe they also need to start making their way into the US, too.[1] <a href="http://siliconmilkroundabout.com/" rel="nofollow">http://siliconmilkroundabout.com/</a>

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kayman大约 11 年前

Start with building stuff. Polishing your skills and becoming a full stack kind of person, tech or not.

wudf大约 11 年前

Haha, I identify with Alex. Even from Boston too.

a3voices大约 11 年前

Just start making things, and telling people you're making things. Eventually you will become connected to like-minded people.

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