
When You Should Quit a Startup Job - Rogerh91
http://rogerhuang.co/when-you-should-quit-a-startup-job/
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cbzink000
When I joined my first (and only) startup, I promised them I would be there
for a year. At the end of that year, if I didn't feel my career wasn't headed
anywhere (raises, stock options, etc) then I would head back to fintech.

Almost exactly one year, one month later I left the company with no promotions
or stock options in sight, although the workload and my duties were
significantly larger than we agreed on.

In addition, that year made me realize that I had absolutely no passion for
the work I was doing (automotive industry) and while the startup culture looks
glamorous, it's far too stressful in the end and negatively affected my
emotional and physical health.

I'm back in "big corporate" fintech and happy to say I was able to bring a lot
of what I learned in the startup world back with me. I've been advancing my
career far faster than I would have done in the land of startups and now own a
significant amount of stock in my current company.

~~~
philip1209
This aligns with Reed Hoffman's "tour of duty" philosophy:

[https://hbr.org/2013/06/tours-of-duty-the-new-employer-
emplo...](https://hbr.org/2013/06/tours-of-duty-the-new-employer-employee-
compact)

Basically, a manager and employee agree to work on a particular project for a
set period of time. At the end of that period of time, the employee is offered
the option of switching to a new kind of project or leaving. If an employee
leaves between tour of duties, it is considered a respectable departure and
they receive the full support of the company in terms of referrals and
positive reference checks.

I wish that more startups treated jobs as tours of duty. Your case highlights
how having such an agreement with your employer could have been more mutually
beneficial.

~~~
danso
> I wish that more startups treated jobs as tours of duty.

Is that even feasible for startups? I guess it depends on size and stage, but
I imagine most startups don't have their mission and product to a solidified-
enough stage where they can think in year-long phases...or to even have more
than one major project in which a year-long engineering tour is possible.

~~~
justonepost
No, it's definitely not feasible for a startup. Contracts are very common in a
lot of jobs, but the friction they generate don't make sense in a startup.
That's why you get all that startup equity, to deal with that risk.

~~~
bkeroack
"[A]ll that startup equity" for normal employees is typically sub 0.1%.

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klinskyc
This is good general advice for any job. It's not healthy to work at any
company where you don't like your superiors, company culture, and the work
itself.

~~~
achow
One crucial difference - in a corporate your superiors may quit, get promoted,
transferred, re-orgged. If nothing else there is always skip level manager
whom you can take your complaints to. In quite a few progressive corporates I
have heard managers very actively manage (in a good way) favorable feedback
from their reports during performance review time.

------
brotoss
4\. Their MVP doesn't even work _cough_ Is essentially vaporware

5\. Founders are focusing on raising another round instead of getting
customers

[my experience at a "tech startup" in the midwest]

~~~
jonnathanson
_" 4\. Their MVP doesn't even work"_

Well, hold on a second here. This really depends on what stage you're joining
in. If you're joining a super-early, pre-product/market fit startup, this is
almost to be expected. Rare is the MVP that immediately and conclusively
achieves fit in the market. More often than not, there are several iterations,
if not major pivots, before a startup achieves any measure of fit. The product
itself has to work from a technical perspective——but it may well be janky and
unreliable for the first ~6 months of its existence, and that's ok. (So long
as people seem to like it, and are willing to put up with its rough edges.)

Now, if you're joining a well-funded and more ostensibly established company
that doesn't seem to have fit, but is focused nevertheless on raising even
_more_ money...that's a bright red flag. Stay away. Stay far away.

These are two different scenarios. There's also a lot of grey area in between
them. There is such a thing as educated risk-taking (early early startup; you
know it might not work) and unnecessary risk-taking (company has raised $$$
without fit, and seems hell-bent on "scaling" what it doesn't actually have).
Knowing the difference makes all the difference.

~~~
EpicEng
The OP said "doesn't even work", which I took to mean "not viable, not
_minimally_ viable". That "V" is quite an important differentiator. Sure, it's
not perfect, but it should be _minimally viable_ , and that includes...
"working".

~~~
jonnathanson
I interpreted the OP's use of "MVP" to mean the founders' self-proclaimed
"MVP," not necessarily an _actually_ viable product. To your point, if it were
actually viable, then a "viable" product that "doesn't even work" would be a
contradiction in terms.

~~~
derefr
There are many edge-cases where a product can be viable without actually
working. They mostly come down to markets where the buyers are affected by
principal-agent problems, and thus are willing to buy something that "doesn't
work" for the principal's use-case, as long as it matches the incentives the
principal has put upon them.

For example, it's very easy to sell things to defense [sub]contractors.
They're not spending their own money; and, in fact, the more money they hand
out to others, the more they can consume as a margin. As long as what they get
in return matches the strict definition of a few check-boxes, they can't be
blamed.

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logicallee
you don't quit a startup job - the startup job quits you.

Like, literally, the way a startup is supposed to be set up is that either it
takes off, or the whole vehicle crumbles around you and you are left sitting
on the pavement while the remains of the startup you worked at are strewn
around you. Then you get up and get in a different car, and hopefully it gets
up to speed rather than disintegrate again.

Like, this is the structure all startups are supposed to have. If you don't
like it, get in a real company. nobody makes you work for a startup. it's also
why you get equity in case the car gets up to speed.

~~~
derefr
That's how _bootstrapped_ startups work. Bootstrapped startups have
wonderfully aligned incentives that way—there's only as much cash as there is
traction, and it will run out the moment you do anything stupid.

VC startups, on the other hand, can chug along "on fumes" for years, neither
gaining traction nor running out of money, every once in a while doing a new
investment round or merging with some other zombie startup.

------
pageld
My favorite to know when to do something binary like this is to flip a coin
with choice #1 equal to heads and choice #2 equal to tails.

When the coin is in the air, you will naturally hope for one side to come up.
Choose that one.

~~~
fmsf
That is a huge "cliché", not to mention that we are talking about things that
may have a long term impact on your life and a rational choice must be done.
Going impetuously like that is sub-optimal in nature. You may have bills to
pay, and hope that the startup work/culture/founders will get better, while at
the same time being miserable with all aspects of it.

~~~
npizzolato
Getting out of dodge doesn't mean immediately upend your life. But if you're
unhappy with your work, your boss, etc. it might be a good idea to _start_
looking for a new job.

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tjradcliffe
There are three ways to get out of a startup:

1) jump 2) go down with the ship 3) get pushed

There is also the mythical "startup hits the bigtime and you get rich", but
the odds of that happening are so low as to be not worth talking about.

So if you join a startup you should be prepared to experience one of those
exits. Jumping may be worth it if the startup is going sideways in a variety
of ways, including but not limited to:

1) persistent low traction

2) anyone in the company ever says anything resembling "we must educate the
customer"

3) frequent pivots (one or two is OK, after that it's probably just flailing
before failing)

The bad culture and poor pay issues aren't as likely to come up if you've
chosen well in the first place, and are reasons why you should leave sooner
rather than later, but startups are mostly experiments aimed at answering two
questions:

1) Can we build this thing?

2) Do enough people want to pay for this thing to make it worth our while?

The answer to the first question is usually--but not always--yes. The answer
to the second question is almost always "no".

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famousactress
I would be careful to note that the inverse isn't always true though. Even if
none of these things attributes rings true, that doesn't mean it's not a good
idea to leave. I think the decision is trickier when that's the case,
actually.

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garagemc2
My issue with this advice is that things change. Things may not be great now
but in 4 months time it may be different.

It's also an opportunity for you to try and make the change with culture and
founders, rather than just giving up and running away.

~~~
bjwbell
In my experience people don't change. Two out of three items on that list are
about people.

~~~
vinceguidry
Three out of three. If you don't have passion for the work, don't expect a
change of heart anytime soon.

~~~
derefr
In startups, your passions might stay the same, but the work can change
radically. Have you ever joined a software startup and had it turn into a
social-lending nonprofit two months later?

------
yangtheman
I get that for some "big corp" jobs could be more rewarding, and I am sure
some are. However, my experiences at "big corp" jobs have been nothing but
disappointing. For example, I've worked for/with incompetent managers who are
good at "gaming" the system to be where they are and totally suck at managing
people, incompetent colleagues who create more problems than solving any and
do not seem to want to learn new things or correct their mistakes.

Startup jobs are definitely more stressful, and co-founders have enormous
impact on the company, but I would always take startup jobs, where I can work
with and learn from smart people (as long as there is a good team chemistry
and no one is an asshole), over "big corp" jobs.

~~~
derefr
> where I can work with and learn from smart people

People always say this, but in every startup I've joined, I've ended up being
the most experienced tech person on the team. Never really ended up learning
anything (in my field) that I didn't just teach myself on my off-hours.

Now, I've learned quite a bit _about business_ from working for startups—with
just as many "don'ts" as "do"s—but that hasn't helped me become better in the
ways I was looking to become better. If I wanted to start a company, I'd be
much more ready—but if I just want to code something, I'm no more ready than
if I had just spent the last five years working on my own hobby projects.

~~~
throwaway12309
Heh, same as me.

For all this talk about SV talent, and startups being filled with smart
people, from experience, it's crap. I've been consulting with various SV
startups recently and between crappy code and more crappy code, I've learned a
lot more working for 'big bad companies' than startups

------
pdevr
Good list. Also, BEFORE any of these:

4\. Company starts firing people

5\. Company shuts down

~~~
tjradcliffe
Riding a company into the ground can be an interesting an educational
experience, so I kind of recommend doing it at least once if you're going to
stick with the startup world. It isnt' pleasant, but after the first time
you'll find your attitude toward work and life will likely be quite different
than they were previously.

~~~
derefr
Amusingly, every startup I've joined, I've joined effectively in the middle of
it running headlong into the ground. In fact, these startups were either
drastically misspending their remaining cash in the bank (and hiring me in the
first place was part of that misspending), or they were hiring me because the
original engineering lead had already seen the blood in the water and quit.

The annoying thing is that, because of this pattern (paycheques always
evaporating, etc.), it's been really hard to get paid, so for the longest time
I've had no savings, and was thus forced to stay at these jobs for the
money... which they don't have. Kind of a vicious circle.

------
dfraser992
Number 0 is: evaluate the character of the founders and the people you're
working with.

I had a contract to build a website - the general idea seemed sound and I was
lead it would serve as a calling card to attract more investment; it was just
one building block of a larger picture. But I didn't do any background checks
on the founders and the guy who recommended me to them I had known and worked
with for a decade.

Fast forward 4 years later - I'm still quasi-employee #1 (and the only one,
the 2 other part time contractors quit because as I learned later, they were
tired of getting paid late), the company is now selling data to enterprise
level customers (instead of to 'consumers' in this market) so the workload has
increased... and I'm working on weekends trying to keep up with the IT
needs... while constantly being paid late.

I finally wised up / burnt out when it became apparent the CEO had 'negotiated
in bad faith' with a enterprise customer and they were threatening to sue
unless they got exactly the data they'd paid for. Yes, I made a ton of
mistakes and I hope no one else ever does what I did! I ignored all the
warnings signs over the years because I got so caught up in the work due to
various personal stuff. The whole company (me and 2 salesguys) quit in the
space of 2 months and had to go thru months of hell trying to get what we were
owed.

The guy who introduced me to them finally decided he should have told me of
the fraud the CEO pulled 30 years ago, the other founder (who has a criminal
record as I recently found out) told me of the CEO's fraud in his other
business, one salesguy told me of the multiple identities the CEO was managing
to make it seem like there were more employees... the list goes on.

Character matters. Contracts are worthless in comparison unless you have the
resources (i.e. enough lawyers and money) to tangle with the other side - and
bad actors know this fact, and how to twist contracts into balloon animals.
Business ethics may be an oxymoron in the real world, but ... my story is a
perfect example of why they should be fundamental / mandatory and the inherent
flaws of capitalism.

Now the CEO has divorced his wife, who funded most of the company, and is
trying to walk off with it having it valued at $350k, while a real estimate is
that it's worth a few million.

------
rifung
This seems like good advice, but I wonder how people are supposed to find
companies that they like in the first place. After all, for whatever reason
its looked down upon to keep switching companies, so after a while you
probably will be pressured to keep your job if only to say you stayed a
sufficient amount of time.

~~~
hkmurakami
I try to seek insider information from friends who work at these companies to
see if they'd urge me to join. They have credibility and relationship risk and
are thus incentivized to keep things honest.

------
eoghan
You should quit your job if you hit even one of those items on the list.

~~~
derefr
Well damn; I've literally _never_ had a job (big company or small) where I
truly enjoyed the culture or connected with the founders. I guess I'm
unemployable.

~~~
eoghan
Nah, not at all. You just need to keep looking. It's certainly not easy. But I
think that life is WAY too short to work anywhere you aren't entirely happy
with.

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martin1975
Everyone reading this thread - you will absolutely love (or at least like) a
book called "Who moved my cheese?"

It's sort of a must read for anyone who ever worked any job ever.

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neonbat
These kind of seem like general rules for leaving any job.

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cquilboss
For non startup I used to say leave asap when checked 2 of 3:

1\. No longer supports the ambiance/atmosphere/vibes of the team

2\. Salary is a problem

3\. No more passion for the work

~~~
stephengillie
I'm not sure what you mean by #1 - could you restate it with different
wording? Your coworkers start to annoy you?

~~~
derefr
If the team is encouraging a culture of [x], but you don't support [x]. For x,
substitute: workaholism, frattish sexism, elitist we-know-better-than-the-
management cloistering, etc.

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codezero
OP referenced a Quora answer – is this your answer, or someone else's? Do you
have a link?

~~~
govindkabra31
Here is direct quora link: [http://www.quora.com/I-just-joined-an-early-stage-
startup-as...](http://www.quora.com/I-just-joined-an-early-stage-startup-as-
the-first-employee-and-I-think-I-have-made-a-huge-mistake-Should-I-take-time-
to-reconsider-it)

In jest, this is what I was thinking of sharing:
[http://lmgtfy.com/?q=%22You+should+get+out+of+Dodge.+I%27ve+...](http://lmgtfy.com/?q=%22You+should+get+out+of+Dodge.+I%27ve+been+through+it+myself.+%22)

~~~
codezero
Hah, that's not jest, that's helpful. I wasn't sure if this was his exact
answer or a summary of some other Quora answer, so I didn't bother searching,
shame on me :)

Thanks!

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jblz
multiplier: You're trading adequate compensation for some potential upside.

