
The Hardest Part of Working at a Growth Startup - svmanager
https://staysaasy.com/scaling/2020/06/27/hardest-part-of-startup-scale-yourself.html
======
dkural
CEOs tend to hire sub-par "experienced" replacement who often don't care as
much about the company as the in-house manager that they've just replaced. I
found many larger-co managers to be far too hands off, and having difficulty
keeping up for a variety of reasons, partly due to the more chaotic nature of
a growth startup. They try to impose a process to help slow & order things -
but inherent complexity can't really be gotten rid of, so this effort often
ends up destroying a major competitive advantage the startup enjoys, which is
adaptability and fast execution.

If a senior exec hasn't gone through rapid growth AND its aftermath, they're
not truly qualified for the job.

Ironically the best of the best companies are very resilient to incompetence,
so it doesn't really matter who you hire.

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julianeon
It seems like there’s an even better solution, not mentioned here, which is:
if you are masterminding growth but you are having to frequently fight for
your life, rather than getting better at fighting for your life, become a
founder. You already know how to achieve revenue growth. Now no one can push
you out.

I mean that’s basically the deal with founders: all the time people who are
inexperienced get thrust into a leadership position, and the company sinks, or
they rise to the occasion. And if they’ve bootstrapped without VC equity, then
the only way they’re leaving is if the company goes bankrupt.

I’d rather do the hard thing one time than the slightly less hard thing
multiple times, without having to explain away multiple firings - the cost of
the situation in the article, which no one wants to pay.

~~~
catsarebetter
Great points, but not everyone wants to be a founder. Some people join high
growth startups to move up quickly in corporate so they can hit executive
level positions faster in their career. In this case, they probably still
value job security and are significantly more risk averse than someone who
would jump straight into being a founder.

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molsongolden
Some of the comments here are focusing on the "fired" and "CEO" aspects of
this post and missing the bigger picture:

The hardest part of working at a growth startup is that it is _exhausting_.

The downside and upside of this are two sides of the same coin: you're
basically working at multiple different companies throughout the growth
process. People who get comfortable at a given point in time are left behind
when the company continues to scale. People who are scaling themselves have
frequent opportunities to take on more responsibility and choose their own
adventure.

You aren't literally "re-interviewing for your job every year" but you do need
to grow with the company or the company will hire externally to fill the needs
that have emerged.

\--

A related note is that not every individual thrives at all of these stages.
You don't need to "constantly scale yourself" if that isn't what you want to
do. Move on when the time is right or join companies at the level of maturity
that you prefer.

Some people love the initial launch and scrappy small team vibe; some people
hate the chaos and prefer more structure. Some like being told what to do;
some hate hierarchies and "bureaucratic red tape!". Some like to build from
nothing; some like to refine and optimize what exists.

Be aware of your optimal environment, needs, and goals then try to find roles
and companies that are a good fit.

~~~
staysaasy
"A related note is that not every individual thrives at all of these stages.
You don't need to "constantly scale yourself" if that isn't what you want to
do. Move on when the time is right or join companies at the level of maturity
that you prefer."

OP here, agreed on that. Another interesting thing I've noticed is that some
people thrive at several different stages – e.g. great at ideation in the
early scrappy days, and also great when you need new ideas during later growth
stages, but less likely to thrive in between. There aren't really black and
white answers.

Thanks for reading!

------
awillen
I think the issue about all of this going unspoken is the real problem,
especially with first-time founders. As with any performance issue, none of
this should come suddenly and unexpectedly. The CEO should be setting
expectations around what kind of growth you need to be creating within the
company, and if you're not then it'll be more understandable that you may be
replaced or demoted.

That said, I really think that early on, it's much better to give execs the
title of "Head of X" rather than director or VP. It indicates that you're in
charge, which is the important thing, but it can prevent the need for demotion
later. If you just call everyone a VP even though you're a 20 person company
and most VPs have 1-2 reports, it can become a problem when you need to hire
someone over one of them. If they're just the head of X, then you can either
explain that they've been performing at the director level, so now you're
going to calibrate their title to that and hire a VP to help mentor them,
etc., or you can just make the "Head of X" titles more specific. For example,
if you have someone who was Head of Marketing early on, you can tell them that
they've been doing a great job as a generalist marketer but now you need them
to focus on a particular area (e.g. you're now "Head of Content Marketing"),
and you're going to hire a manager to oversee the department.

~~~
staysaasy
Hey @awillen, thanks for reading!

The "Head of X" idea is an interesting one that I've seen gain traction
recently for the reasons you've described. As with all things, at least half
the battle is just managing expectations well.

------
yowlingcat
I think this article hits on an important problem, but it's the second article
I've read so far from this blog that seems a little short on solutions. You
probably /know/ that you have to "scale yourself up" if you're in this
situation -- that's not the hard part! The hard part is...how?

You have to hire someone more senior than you. Someone who has already done
the thing you've been trying to do. That's it. That's the only way. And if
that someone who's more senior than you, if they don't respect you?

Well, that's is the challenge of leadership. Servant leadership and leading
with the humility to deserve the respect of those who are technically "more
senior" than you are is I think when leadership is put to the test. For some,
this is not a huge change of pace. But for others, this is a huge challenge.

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jv22222
> even founding CEOs are not immune.

Especially founding CEOs are not immune with < 25% making it to the end.

See the founders dilemma:

[https://hbr.org/2008/02/the-founders-dilemma](https://hbr.org/2008/02/the-
founders-dilemma)

------
troughway
I really enjoy these articles and I can relate to a lot of them personally.
Last time it was posted I went through a rabbit hole of reading through a
bunch of it.

I am wondering why HN in general doesn’t seem to like these articles? I don’t
get it.

~~~
MattGaiser
I see them as a combo of common sense and struggle porn.

First little bit is talking up the stakes of how bad things could be. Hype up
the difficulty level.

The “how to scale yourself” section is just a quick blurb of common advice you
see everywhere. “Keep learning” and “ask questions” is advice I’ve seen in the
last 50 LinkedIn posts I have read.

~~~
pseudopupil
Struggle porn is a fantastic characterization, alas when I googled it of
course there's actual struggle porn :{

~~~
MattGaiser
Learn to use incognito when safe search is off?

------
shostack
Do people who have been let go in this manner get looked down upon by future
prospective interviewers? Or is it understood this happens regularly?

~~~
PragmaticPulp
Officially, people aren’t “let go” from high ranking positions. They’re either
gently demoted into a lesser role with the expectation that they are expected
to find another job, or they “step away to spend more time with their
families” or similar excuses.

As for future prospects: Potential employers know that unemployed people are
easier hires than employed people, so compensation might be lower. They might
also be concerned about the reasons for the person’s dismissal, especially if
the person’s tenure was short (1-2 years).

On the other hand, an unemployed person is available to be hired ASAP, which
can be attractive to fast moving startups who can’t afford to wait for months
of recruiting, interviewing, negotiating, and then notice periods. Some times
you’ll see these people hired into consultant roles first as a sort of trial
run before real employment. In fact, many people who are dismissed from high-
ranking startup positions voluntarily switch to consulting for a while anyway.

------
rabidrat
The authors are trying hard to stay anonymous for some reason. They're giving
a bunch of advice but it sounds like they're rehashing the same old stuff that
you hear everywhere, like they're trying to SEO or something. I doubt they've
ever even started a business, much less a successful growth SaaS company.

------
kuncha
Okay. What’s the solution?

------
jariel
I don't believe this to be true for the most part, but if it is, then quit
immediately and find a real job.

The 'benefits' are generally not worth it for someone to have to asses you
everyone once and a while wherein you can get axed.

You have to ask yourself some very serious questions as to why you're there in
the first place.

It's fair if you have to hire your boss or something like that, ie you're 23
hired as 'C-' something and now they need someone who actually knows what they
are doing, but that's if it's within expectations, and they don't need to fire
you.

For founders with tons of equity, it's understandable if there's a shift in
responsibility, but not getting axed unless there's an obvious issue.

Unless you are saving babies or literally stopping the Nazis from taking over
the world, you don't need to be 'patriotic' to your team. Just professionally
loyal.

~~~
marcinzm
Every job you get assessed periodically and can be fired if you're not
performing up to par. In a growth startup, performing up to par as an
executive means being able to scale to the next level if needed. You get a
fancy title, a bunch of equity and the chance to jump a few management levels
if you can keep up. The reason they wouldn't want to keep someone who got
"demoted" around is because they too often will have an axe to grind and cause
issues.

~~~
jariel
This is really not the right description for a few reasons.

1) In normal circumstances, you get hired to do 'job A' it's not unheard of to
get let go quickly if you can't do 'job A' but rare to get leg to after some
time. Getting fired after a review because after 3 years, somehow you're not
'qualified' to do your job doesn't happen that often. Layoff, yes, but fired,
no.

2)_It's not a helpful analogy because at a startup if you're 'VP or Head of A'
\- the job of managing 0 people, to managing 3 to 10 to a division is going to
obviously change tremendously.

So it's more like 'We hired you to do Job A, now it's Job B, you're not quite
qualified so you're out'.

If this is a scenario you think you could be in, you need to quit now, there's
almost zero chance it's worth the time or effort to be there.

A lot of the equity may be unvested. What has vested and not exercisable may
not be within reach for the staffer to actually afford to buy. There may be
wash-out rounds later that will dilute the leavers significantly while those
who stay get issued more equity.

It's understandable that a company wants to have more capable and senior
people in roles as they scale, but that doesn't mean the individual has to go
- they can 'hire their boss', they can do other strategic things. Technical
people for example can go on to technical leadership roles instead of
classical product or management.

If a company also wants to put someone in the role of VP of whatever, knowing
they're going to need someone considerably more senior in the future, and
effectively will have to let go of said person ... and that mutual
understanding is not there to begin with ... then it's also a problem in
management.

The only role for which there is essentially a tacit understanding from the
start would be CEO as there are serious discussions and expectations there,
for most other roles there is not.

Finally, I would say that for more senior roles, jobs are not as easy coming
as they are otherwise. Young people tend to not grasp how impactful changing
roles and careers can be. If you're 23 and you have to go back to 'writing
code' like you did 'just last year' \- that's fine. Probably. But for most
other people it's an existential calamity. It's a really, really big deal.

While Valley people do understand the concept of 'getting let go' \- even
then, it's still not looked well upon. Systematically companies like to hire
people that are in that role already and employed. Outside the Valley failure
is not well recognized and they will not care about 'how much said person
learned'. It could be a career ending/destroying situation.

If you were hired for a senior role, but expect there's a decent chance you'll
get let go as the company grows - you've been duped and you're at the wrong
company. Move on.

~~~
fatnoah
>Finally, I would say that for more senior roles, jobs are not as easy coming
as they are otherwise.

I went through this when my company was acquired. I led an Engineering team of
about 30 people. About 6 months after we were acquired, the company moved its
own people in and I got moved into an IC role after about 4-5 years of being
"no code". At that point, I realized I had no interest in a) being the mentor
for my new boss who was not technical and very junior and b) writing code any
more. 15 years of coding was enough for me, so I moved on.

------
dangus
This article gave me a queasy feeling like we’ve reached a terrible form of
late stage capitalism.

The steps seem to go like this:

1\. You work your ass off in a growth company only to be told that you, the
person who partially made the success possible in the first place, can now be
replaced with someone better, even though you have already done a great job.

2\. This is normal and expected and not just the sign of a company with
abusive policies.

3\. This is spun as a good thing for the employee, somehow.

This sort of capitalist bullshit is why even high-paid specialist roles like
professional athletes have workers unions.

Because if the company had their way they’d throw you in the trash the moment
they could find someone better than you, despite your contributions making the
company’s success possible in the first place.

Now you’re kicked to the curb with no/bad equity, and if you don’t like it you
can screw off to the next abusive venture-backed employer, who operate the
same way.

~~~
awillen
"Now you’re kicked to the curb with no/bad equity" \- where did this come
from? In this situation, in which you've done such a good job that the company
has effectively outgrown your skillset, you almost certainly have equity (it's
unlikely this all happened in <1 year) and it's almost certainly good equity.
That's one of the reasons this isn't so bad, and to a degree you should be
okay with it - you're a part owner of the company, and especially if you were
an early exec, you probably have a meaningful amount of equity. If someone
else can help grow the value of your equity significantly faster than you can,
that's a good thing for you.

~~~
rabidrat
If you are not a founder, you have <5% options (likely <1%) which are not
preferred and if you are no longer with the company, they will be diluted with
every funding round and restructuring. You will have no control over this.
This is "no/bad equity".

~~~
awillen
Of course you're going to be diluted - that'll happen whether you're at the
company or not. Obviously you'll get refresher grants if you stay, but in this
case if you leave you can go somewhere else and get equity there, so you're
not necessarily losing out (and in fact you're diversifying). If you think
that dilution means that you have bad equity, you should never join an early
stage startup in the first place. Dilution is going to happen, but it's not
inherently a bad thing - your piece of the pie is getting smaller, but if it's
because the company's growing very quickly, the value of your shares are going
up. The percentage of equity you hold isn't what matters - the value is.

~~~
peteradio
You are making some strong claims when this is very dependent on the exact
scenario. My bet would be that you don't want to be replaceable because if you
don't hold out to the IPO, the startup (and any new partnership they make)
have every incentive to claw back as much money as possible. They could do
this even if you stay but when you stay you need to be assertive enough to
defend your position. I don't know how well everybody does at asserting their
position from a technical role when you aren't in the room where the decision
making happens. The only way I'd ever work at a startup with the goal of
making a bunch of money based off of those shares is if I absolutely knew they
couldn't and wouldn't fuck me over. I have no faith in any person in this
world apart from very few. I would rather "grind" for the money i.e. work 8hr
days and make it to my money goals quicker than 99% of the outcomes of
choosing the startup path. That said, you can get good experience but the most
important experience you get is knowing where you stand in any organization.

~~~
awillen
That's a fair point of view, but to your point, you're not going to work at a
startup with the goal of making a bunch of money from shares, so you're
probably not the target audience for this post.

~~~
peteradio
I suppose you might think my comments off topic? I'd make a similar comment on
a post titled "The Hardest Part of Investing in a Ponzi scheme or "The Hardest
Part of buying a car to work for Uber" or "The Hardest Part of Selling for
Amway". The statement itself is a deception, because the answer to the easy
question for 99% is don't fucking do it.

