
Why to Join a Startup After Graduating - estromberg
http://estromberg.com/post/6108833062/5-reasons-to-join-a-startup-after-graduating
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geebee
I agree, though you do need to make sure you choose a good startup. There are
still startups out there that view developers as interchangeable cogs, where
you can end up with the worst of all worlds (no stable paycheck, no real
autonomy, uninteresting work).

One thing I did notice - it can be a little risky to spend a long time at a
single startup that fails. I worked for a startup that did fail (and was a
little crappy) for two years, and some people had been there for 8 or more
years. When it tanked, the people who had spent their entire career since
college at the startup didn't have extensive networks to tap into for the next
gig.

The ideal resume probably includes a stint at a large but respected company
(such as google amazon), as well as some innovative work at smaller companies
and/or startups and maybe some consulting and open source work.

Of course, the "resume" is starting to get a little outdated, and a lot of
people would say the best thing to do is just start your own company when
you're young and can afford the risk, rather than wasting those consequence-
free first 10 years on resume building.

Now that I'm the primary wage earner for a family with two kids, trust me, I
know the restrictions. Interestingly, startups aren't really off limits to
people like me in places like the Bay Area, because they keep your skills
sharp and there is just so much hiring going on (the ol "career security" vs
"job security" thing).

But what is off limits (or at least very difficult) is the ramen-level poverty
you can afford when you're in your 20s and have nobody depending on you. For
the first 5 years after college, my rent was $350/month near the beach in San
Diego, and that was the only real expense. If I'd needed to, I could have
driven that even lower. That's a serious opportunity that goes away later in
life.

~~~
FrojoS
I would love to move to Mission Beach, San Diego! Best surfing place I've ever
been to [1]. However, I assume, that there is more interesting stuff going on
in Silicon Valley.

Right now, my plan for the summer is to couch surf around a bit in Palo Alto
first. Then, if I find nice people I will offer them a small but fair monthly
payment so I can use there kitchen and bathroom and hang up my hammok in the
garden. Has anyone tried this before? Any tips? Looking for a couch surfer?
I'd like to bring down my expense to the minimum of what is sustainable,
healthy and productive.

Can you use the Stanford library and Wi-Fi for free? You can at MIT but here
in Munich the Wi-Fi is locked for non-students/alumni. Also, according to Phd-
comics, there is a much free food there as at MIT, right?

[1] I learned to surf whites with a long board there within a few hours. The
best thing is, that you can walk instead of paddle because the water is so
shallow. This way, you can surf all day long, even as a rookie. Also, board +
wetsuit are $10 whereas in San Francisco I couldn't find anything cheaper than
$25. In San Diego they even let you bring back the stuff any time you want,
with free pick up later the day.

~~~
geebee
Yeah, Mission Beach is an excellent surfing beach, good for beginners but also
attracts some good surfers because it's a wide open beach break in the usually
crowded SoCal surf scene. I was about a 5 minute bike ride away. The downside
is that this is pretty much what I spent my time doing. Keep that in mind any
time you consider taking any advice from me ;)

Unfortunately, PB and MB are no longer anywhere near as inexpensive as they
were when I was living there, so it's not quite the slacker paradise it used
to be.

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patrickyeon
The biggest reason I joined a startup after graduating: I got to do things.

Positions that I would be steered towards applying for in big companies would
be things like "sales engineer", "support engineer", testing, verification,
documentation, government policy... lots of grinding-work type of jobs. Put in
your 5-8 years and/or get a Master's degree, and then we can talk about
interesting work (I'm in hardware, fwiw).

At the startup, I do a bit of all that, but I also get to make things. A few
months in, and I was designing boards, all the way from initial design,
through schematic, layout, prototyping and testing. I write code we need when
we need it. I get to help figure out what kind of specs we need to look for,
and how to do it. I get to work at macro- (architecture) and micro-
(components and signal levels) levels in near-parallel, on _my_ design in
progress.

I have the impression that I would be lucky to have found a job with a large
company that let me run as far as I have in any one of those directions.

------
zhoutong
Human beings are naturally divided into three different groups with different
likelihood of risk-taking after graduating:

1\. I can risk everything to be an entrepreneur.

2\. I want to be an entrepreneur, but I'm not ready or I'm unsure to take the
risk.

3\. I just want a stable career and work as hard as I can.

The first group will start their companies; the second group will join start-
ups to _learn_ what it takes; and the third group will ultimately join big
companies and earn a stable income.

Ironically, start-ups usually want loyal people to stay (especially when their
businesses are uncertain), so they aim for the third group when choosing
people. Big companies want to look for extra investment opportunities,
especially from their employees (because they know them more and trust them
more), so they may want to hire the second group instead.

It's always hard to match the mutual interest in hiring. I don't think
there're any _reasons_ to choose what to do either. It all depends on what the
other companies want and which group you fall in.

~~~
krschultz
I think you are definitely onto something, although it's a temporary mindset.

I've worked at a startup for exactly the reason you describe as type #2.
Consider it practice for my eventual startup (when I will join #1).

But after graduation I declined going back to the startup world and choose
path #3. I did this for a very specific reason: stability while I save up some
money to let me do #1.

But I disagree with your use of the phrase 'risk everything'. There is almost
no way to 'risk everything' at graduation because you have nothing. I thought
about going straight to #1, but it would have required living at home with my
parents. Instead I moved out and got a job. If you are living at home and
being supported, you are almost risking nothing. If your startup fails while
your living expenses are $0, you haven't fallen at all.

The risk for someone to jump later in life is far greater. You have savings
people can come after if you go bankrupt. You have bills and responsibilities.
You truly are risking something. Living with someone else's support right
after graduation really isn't risking anything.

------
veyron
Why not to join a startup after graduating:

1) _Leverage_ (lack thereof): When you work for a larger player, you have
established yourself as a person that the firm found acceptable. Having a big
name company on your resume means that you were accepted (and lets be honest,
for however bad people describe working at a large company, there are enough
people who want to work there that it lends credibility). I've had countless
offers just handed to me (ie joke interview, sometimes even just offers on the
spot) based on pedigree.

Addressing his argument about "cashing in chips", it comes when you decide to
start on your own. Just mentioning names of my former employers or work
therein automatically confers a sense of legitimacy, and I've noticed that my
phone calls are actually returned (try A/B testing this)

2) _Cash_ upfront: The ideal ideal solution is to bootstrap your own startup.
Unfortunately that means you need to have enough cash to bootstrap.

To defray the obvious argument, I will break down the chance as follows:

\- If you are going into a startup, you are taking the chance that the startup
will do sufficiently well that your equity actually has enough value to
compensate for the lack of salary (and that's not necessarily within your
control)

\- If you are going into a company, you are taking the chance that your
lifestyle won't scale to meet your income. If it does, you won't have as much
flexibility when you do want to do a startup.

The salient point here is that, with a company, the result of the gamble is
completely within your powers

3) _Relationships_ : You build relationships with hundreds or thousands of
coworkers, on top of the umpteen companies you interact with on a daily basis,
who have other skills that may be of help later on. I still call on some
former coworkers and others for help with certain things they were strong in,
and vice versa. It's hard to build that rolodex at a startup.

I probably could write a point-by-point rebuttal to the original post

~~~
veyron
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2623797> <\-- a little bit longer
discussion

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HaloZero
I still hold the best place for a person after graduation is a large but not
monolith company. Avoid Google, Microsoft, Amazon, the giant companies where
you're just a cog in a giant machine. Go to a company like
LinkedIn/Dropbox/Square. They are growing and are hiring, they aren't startup
level anymore but most likely you will many benefits of startup life (freedom
to move around, less clearly defined roles) without the long hours and risk.
You also have the advice and mentorship of people who have already built a
successful company.

~~~
krschultz
Medium sized companies of all stripes seem to be the best for someone early in
their career. Small enough to notice you, but big enough to have somewhere to
move you once you are noticed.

One of the biggest problems with a startup - if there are 10 engineers, where
can you get promoted to?

The converse problem at a large company, there are plenty of places to get
promoted to but getting recognized is often hard. I've been at my job 9 months
at a big company and have had 2 different bosses already. My boss's boss
oversees 100 people and barely knows me. How do you built continuity and a
reputation?

Medium sized (50-250 people?) seems the best, but are sometimes hardest to
find. They aren't on the S&P500, but they also aren't young enough to get
press in Techcrunch.

~~~
nostrademons
It's growth rate that matters, not size. I interned at a medium-sized (~150
employees) consulting firm in college. It was a pretty relaxed and functional
atmosphere work-wise, but it would've been a career dead-end. It was far too
easy to get pigeonholed into a single contract for a couple years and not
learn anything.

------
ry0ohki
The biggest problem I see with joining a startup after graduation is more
often then not, Startups don't use any kind of best practices, as they just
want to Get Things Done(tm).

It's not uncommon to run into a startup that doesn't use source control, code
comments, have failover servers, or even have a dev/staging environment. There
are some things that are best to get a good foundation for your career, and
large companies provide these in droves.

That said, there are Startups that have their act together, and after college
is probably the best time to take that risk.

~~~
nicholasjbs
For what it's worth, we're helping dozens of startups hire, and I think every
single one uses source control, some have failover servers, and I'd the
majority have dev/staging environments (I haven't looked at their code bases,
so I don't know how well documented the code is).

That said, you're right: Startups do focus more on getting things done and
making sure people actually want what they're building, sometimes to the
detriment of best practices.

On the other hand, startups tend to use use better (and certainly newer)
tools. For instance, git vs. svn or cvs.

~~~
wisty
And not all big companies use source control; let alone failover servers and
dev/test/prod.

~~~
FrojoS
Exactly. Also, they may suffer under the "not build here" syndrom. I heard
this is true for Google.

------
wccrawford
As much as I enjoyed working at a startup and watching it go from debt to
massive profit, I definitely don't think it's for everyone. Or even most
people.

It takes a tremendous amount of drive and passion to deal with the negatives
of working at a startup. Low pay, odd/long hours, uncertain future, non-
existant code base...

For many people, taking that junior programmer job at the big corporation is
much closer to their pace and risk level.

And let's not forget that if you have that much drive and passion, you might
be better off being a partner at a startup, instead of being a hired hand.

~~~
tentonwire
> Low pay, odd/long hours, uncertain future, non-existant code base...

This sounds like programming in grad school!

------
wooUK
I think spending some time in a big company after graduation is very worth
while. Preferably not a software company. At least you'll learn the culture,
the way they work, their problems. With this knowledge under your belt you
will be in a better position to sell into these companies in the future.

------
thejbf
It's more valuable to start with a huge corporation and then move to a start-
up according to my personal experience.

At a large software/Internet company, you can learn best practices, how
organizations work, politics, real team work and real challenges in large
scale. And can make more connections that will help you for future
opportunities and company name might be a great reference.

But 1-2 years later, you have to move on. Because clearly, you'll see that
you've started almost nothing, never practiced some fundamental architecture
patterns (since your large scale cant scale with them), shipped less code. You
are living in a comfort zone that you obviously cant even take a tiny risk.

------
famousactress
In the bay area this seems an increasingly irrelevant question (join a startup
vs. big company), compared to grads deciding between joining and startup and
_starting_ a startup. I'd be curious to see more discussion on that pros/cons
surrounding that decision for new grads.

~~~
estromberg
Totally. This is definitely something I'm seeing on the East Coast as well
(Although at a lower rate than those deciding between startup and big co.) The
advice I've generally been given is to start a company as soon as possible,
because nothing can prepare you for the world of being a founder. In reality,
my experience working for a startup has been incredibly useful in shaping how
I think about starting my own company. Looking back I feel I was relatively
clueless right out of college, and working for a startup first has been an
awesome choice for me. But again, I am just one data point.

~~~
nostrademons
Looking back from my first job after college, I feel I was relatively clueless
right out of college.

But looking back from my startup after my first job, I was relatively clueless
in my first job.

And looking back from my big-company job after my startup, I was relatively
clueless in my startup.

I don't think this ever ends. Rather, you just become relatively _less_
clueless compared to all the other nincompoops founding startups. Repeat often
enough and maybe you can convince someone to give you lots of money.

------
pchristensen
"what I’ve found in talking with older friends in other career paths is that
the further you go down one path, the harder it will be to make the switch to
another. The weight of momentum can be overbearing, especially when the skills
accumulated in most industries outside of tech are little transferable to tech
startups. "

The whole article is good but this one is the one that rings loudest to me.

------
201studio
The best of both worlds for me is to work for a new division or product inside
a large company. This way you get some of the start up type leverage and
exposure, but have some decent processes and people in place to learn from.
Also you have the stability of the constant income to pay off student loan
debts.

------
babar
I think he misses the biggest advantage - after college most people don't have
a family and kids and mortgage to worry about so they can devote a huge number
of hours to their work, and the risks are much more manageable. Why waste that
at a large company where the effort cannot be rewarded?

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dreamdu5t
Yeah... if you want to get paid minimum wage to do amazingly skilled and
specialized work.

------
omouse
Be a wage slave for yourself or be a wage slave for some fat-cat CEO. HMMM
tough choice ;p

------
collateral
For designers/programmers, yes. Not as easy for us business grads.

~~~
estromberg
You might find this post I wrote a while back useful:
[http://estromberg.com/post/4778188872/how-to-get-a-job-
at-a-...](http://estromberg.com/post/4778188872/how-to-get-a-job-at-a-startup-
if-you-arent-a-developer)

~~~
dannylipsitz
Very useful indeed.

