
Ask HN: To employees of a startup that later got acquired/IPO'd - ccdev
How do you figure out you picked a &quot;winner&quot; startup before joining?<p>Let me preface this with saying, I&#x27;ll be so upset if the majority of answers boil down to having a lot of luck :D I&#x27;ve been burned out through a few early stage companies and it feels like it&#x27;s all blind luck. Hopefully it&#x27;s not all a guessing game and you can make predictions based on certain qualities and metrics of a startup at early stages.<p>As a bonus question: would you work for an early startup whose founder(s) have no previous business track record?
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roguecoder
I look for:

1\. Solving an actual problem for actual users that users have shown they are
willing to pay for. This One Neat Trick will leave you significantly better
off than average: everything else is secondary.

2\. No long hours, burned out founders, fancy soda machines or other signs of
prioritising appearances over competence.

3\. Multiple cofounders, but one that is in charge. That person should have at
least have managed a team before, and the people they had managed should
respect them.

4\. The team should look like the audience they intend to serve. Unless the
product is specifically for men, no way I'd join a team that's all dudes.

No startup track record might be okay, depending on what background they did
have, but I'm also always concerned about founders who are willing to give
away the farm for funding. I need to trust the CEO with my stock options, not
just the company's success.

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SirLJ
If you find a formula for this , I'll be very interested to buy it, so I can
start a VC fund on the side...

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alain94040
Work with people you respect.

