

Ask HN: What are the best startups to join? - vishalzone2002

Hi All,
  What are the best startups to join according to you? 
  Best in terms of potential growth and not culture or benefits. Startups that have potential to become google or facebook like and would be great to join at a early stage.
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verelo
People who you think are about to get funded, or have JUST (like in the last
1-2 months) taken on a series A round.

Edit: My reasoning for saying this is that these are the companies where great
positions will be opening up and created very shortly. Also given that they've
taken on funding, or are about to close, they've been put through their paces
by the VC's, so you can have some confidence that they know what they're doing
(This is also why i said Series A, not seed...seed is a real gamble)

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aashaykumar92
I think this is an excellent response! To add on, if you truly want to hit it
big (like the Googles, Facebooks, etc), look at the market space the company
is in and moreover, see the potential spaces it can/plans scale into.

This is much less based on metrics as the above response, but it is definitely
important especially if you want to get into a company that can hit it big.
And this is also a question (about which markets they plan to scale into) I
think you can ask the company if/when they are interviewing you. Best of luck!

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argonaut
I'd like to note that usually it's a bad deal to be one of the first 1-5
employees at a startup, even if they've raised seed funding. The reason is the
startup has only been de-risked by a factor of, say, 5, yet your equity stake
is lower than the founders by a factor, of say, 10 (assume two co-founders who
get 40% each, and you get 4% - early employees often get less in fact); you
might as well be a founder of your own company - the risk-reward profile is
often better. Now, obviously if you absolutely believe in the strength of the
company, this point is moot and you should join anyway.

I think the best opportunities lie in companies that have already closed a
Series A, which means they've picked up traction / validation, but still have
a long way to grow.

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stevenameyer
My personal selection would be based first and foremost on the team. If the
team is really solid then I would look for a company that I believe in as far
as what they are trying to do. My personal opinion is that if you are looking
to hit it big as a company you need to have good people working towards a goal
they believe in. Other outside factors can be hit or miss but the truth is
that very few companies go big, but the one thing they all seem to have in
common is great people who have bought into the vision of the company.

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vishalzone2002
I think looking at the team is a very good idea. I did like to add a research
that I am doing about the percentage failures of the VCs. So far, my study
shows a great bias of chances to be successful based on the VC firm involved.

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vishalzone2002
Great related article <https://medium.com/startups-and-tech/8c4523242c85>

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vishalzone2002
Do you have any specific names ? Since I am professionally a data engineer, I
believe Cloudera, Palantir are few but have already grown a lot.

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drasa
Joining my start-up would be a great choice. asa@wihlbeck.com

