

Why Not to Join a Startup After Graduating - veyron
http://veyronb.wordpress.com/2011/06/06/5-reasons-not-to-join-a-startup-after-graduating/

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bmcleod
One of the things people talking about reputation seem to miss is how easy it
is to establish that base level of reputation. A couple of decent talks at
local user groups will be enough in most tech areas that have job openings for
employers and people with other opportunities to start querying you before
they move onto more blanket searches.

On top of this I really dislike the argument that the skills are transferable
from a big company to a small one easily. It seems like a much better argument
for going towards something like a small-medium company. In the web space I'd
suggest that the plethora of 10-40 person bespoke web dev shops that float
around are a very good option for gaining broad skills and being less risky
than startups.

People who are interested in startups should join something that looks pretty
similar to a startup. People who are interested in making 10 million dollars
should join a big company and live cheaply.

~~~
retroafroman
Good point on gaining reputation with the hacker group of the area by doing
tech talks. However, I don't think that is the same thing as having a big name
company experience on a resume. I imagine many HR people wouldn't likely know
what a user group is, what a tech talk is supposed to demonstrate, or why they
would find that valuable. On the other hand, if they see a brand they
recognize and respect (Apple, Google, Cicso, MSFT, etc), they will more likely
think higher of the candidate based on that alone.

Agree on the last point. One need not create a start up to experience working
at one.

~~~
wladimir
Well, if your reputation is good enough you tend to get job offers. In many
cases this means it's just rubber-stamped paperwork for HR.

~~~
babul
Your reputation is only as good as the people who know it. Most HR will not
have heard of you (unless you are a high-profile leader in your field) and
hence the desire for a rubber stamp from a brand company. It's the same reason
many people desire Ivy League education, not for the learning, but the brand
name that will make entry to most jobs a lot easier (as HR/Company assume
certain level of quality/competency/work-ethic/etc has been met).

~~~
tomjen3
HR doesn't need to know you - they just need to be told "I want to hire this
person" by somebody who do know you.

~~~
retroafroman
Which again, circles back to reputation building. Somebody, as you say, has to
be impressed/like you enough to make the effort of pushing your information
through the ranks to get hired. If you know the person from some other
context, it's possible. If you're another resume from the stack, it's much
more difficult to get that attention from anyone-HR, engineers, managers-in
the company.

~~~
wladimir
There's many ways of getting attention of people within a company than piling
your resume on the stack;

\- talking at tech conferences / local user group (as the OP noted)

\- contributing to open source projects

\- keeping an interesting blog about a technical topic

and so on...

------
snikolic
I disagree with most of this. I've been posting words to this effect a lot
recently, but as a prospective employee, I think there's currently a false
dichotomy between startup and big company.

There are plenty of companies in between "2 guys in a garage hacking" and
"giant megacorp". Many of these - even late stage or well funded startups,
although the word startup becomes blurry at this point - are big enough to
satisfy all five of the author's reasons for joining a big company.

For example, consider a 4 or 5 person engineering team at a well funded
startup, or a recently profitable/break-even late stage startup. You can
probably specialize in something you're passionate about, have an impressive
entry on your resume, make a competitive salary, make relationships, and learn
from smart people. In fact, I would argue you'd probably do at least three of
these things better at a small company than at a large company. If your
ambition is to be a typical career person, then you'll have lots of
advancement opportunities if you get in closer to the ground floor. If your
ambition is to be an entrepreneur, then you can learn from your bosses, who
have already succeeded at what you want to be doing.

As engineers, the market is in our favor at the moment. You don't necessarily
need to forfeit equity or ground-floor opportunities for salary and stability.

~~~
veyron
Now consider the other side of the equation.

Let's say you are a founder at a small startup. You are looking for the best
talent. Rarely do you have thousands of people knocking at your door asking
for a position. You have to go out and look for the best people. You will find
yourself in one of three positions:

A) Not finding enough people -- then you have the ability to interview
everyone, and any candidate may have a chance of getting in the door.

B) Finding too many people -- then you don't have the bandwidth to interview
everyone, and you need some sort of heuristic to decide who to interview
first. This is where pedigree comes in.

C) Outsourcing to a third party recruiting firm -- generally, even if you
instruct them not to, they will send you candidates with strong pedigrees

~~~
snikolic
There are ways of distinguishing yourself and building pedigree without
spending the first years of your career at megacorp. Education, side projects,
introductions, etc. If you can't create one of these distinguishing factors
for yourself, you probably don't belong at a startup anyway.

In general, I think the issues of "Where should I work?" and "How do I get
noticed/hired?" are very separate issues.

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ulisesroche
Probably the biggest reason why you shouldn't work for a startup is that the
word "passion" seems to be so carelessly thrown about.

~~~
jsavimbi
I think a lot more people are passionate about having a job versus being
passionate about the job itself.

The downside of jumping right into the startup game right from school is that
your lack of experience in business, networking, fundraising, managing
relationships and delivery is going to work against you right away unless your
first startup job is with experienced entrepreneurs who will work to bring you
up to speed in relation to technology (or biz dev if that's your (current)
calling) and teach you everything they know about the business, not just the
current business conventions that guide it. Being able to learn the business
and identify opportunities is key; until you're able to do that you're just
writing aimless code or making cold calls in the hopes of some modicum of
success.

I'm not so sure that large companies can, or will provide the type of
opportunities that a person who's interests lie in discovery will need in
order to find balance in work and life.

------
waratuman
1\. Passion is the ultimate competitive advantage

The example given here is for someone who finds great value in a very specific
subset of a field, but passion can be about a broader goal, such as building a
company. Really this argument has to do with subjective values. So I do not
see how this would make for a general argument for working at a large comapny.

2\. Leverage

It may be true that working at a large company provides as sense of
credibility, but this does not address the startup world, which I find to be
about the same. Working with a startup is not a lonely task, it involves much
more and knowledge of the field, who the competitor are, knowing who else
building a company. I'm given a sense of credibility simply because people
recognize the startup I am a part of.

3\. More Money

Having bootstrapped a company before, I can't say that it is the ideal
solution in all cases. Many factors come into play here. I find it very
unlikely that a company that is in a highly regulated area or doing some kind
of cancer research would be bootstrapped.

The title of this section addresses 'more money'. If you are looking to make
the most money there is no faster way of that I know of than building your own
company (I could be wrong here, feel free to point something out). It is risk
vs. reward. A subject value again.

4\. Relationships

Being a natural introvert, it might be easier to develop relationships in a
corporate setting. But, I still have people I know from various companies that
I can call right up.

5\. If you want to start a company, a large company is the best place to learn

I would say the best place to learn is on the spot, but that doesn't mean you
can't learn from other companies.

~~~
swombat
_If you are looking to make the most money there is no faster way of that I
know of than building your own company (I could be wrong here, feel free to
point something out). It is risk vs. reward. A subject value again._

Nah, if you are looking to maximise your chances of making enough money to
retire by the time you're in your late 30s, join an investment bank, not a
startup.

Do a startup if you can't imagine doing anything else with your time.

------
tuhin
Assuming that the long term goal is to start a company of your own at some
point they are just means to an end.

If you work at a large company you need to work for a longer time to have
enough cash, relevant knowledge of wide business area (not just something
highly focused), and it is a safer choice.

However if you are one of those who like to see change, cannot stand lazy co
workers, and are excited about immediate impact of your actions then startups
are the place to be. It is riskier, more fun, you get _enormous_ experience in
a wide domain which might not directly be related to your work. Whatever be
the reason, please do not work in a startup because you think it will do well
and you will be a millionaire because of it.

Also regarding: _If you are not a cofounder, you will be expected do a lot of
different types of work, affording you little time to spend on the particular
subfield of interest._ I for one know a lot of co-founders who work their
asses off and party alongside their employees. This is in my opinion the best
part about working for a startup that you will never find in a large
organisation. There is no-one who is a "boss". You are a bunch of people who
have a passion to make an impact and everyone is focused to make it happen.

~~~
veyron
"If you work at a large company you need to work for a longer time to have
enough cash" <\-- how long you need to work to have enough cash depends on two
things:

A) your spending rate

B) your earning rate

And in general, your earning rate is faster at a company. Again, you have to
compensate for selection bias here: not all startups are successful. Even if
they are large enough to have employees.

Regarding your comments about little time, I think you are confusing "no free
time" with "no free time at work to focus on something else". I'm definitely
not arguing that people who work for startups dont have time for partying.
Definitely not. All I am saying is that, because the nature and frequency of
demands is different, you generally find yourself with more time to explore
your own thing at a large firm. And yes, this is coming from a person in
finance, so it must be true for other industries as well :)

------
Creyels
Call me romantic, but in this decision I would leave reputation, money, status
etc. behind

To my mind what really matters is: do you love what you are doing. Ergo the
goal is to figure out: What do I love?

How to do that? By doing internships and gain experience! I did 4 internships
at companies from small to huuuge till my graduation. When you, like me, after
many internships at companies of different sizes and sectors still have not
found a job that you love - then you should think about working at a startup
or even founding one.

Well, I don't want to generalize things too much, but when you are a creative
mind and have ideas and want to make them real, then a huge company is the
worst place to start. They lure with self-fulfilment, but more likely they
suck out your potential. The questions you want to ask yourself in the morning
should be like: Am I intrinsic motivated to get up now and give my best till
midnight+ today?

Since I founded my startup it is the first time in my life that I have this
feeling and I wake up in the morning and really can't wait to get to work and
get work done.

Achieve that and your decision is made.

~~~
veyron
"Since I founded my startup ..." <\-- the underlying comparison is between
"working at a startup" (which is understood to be a non-founder status) and
"working at a large firm".

As far as internships are concerned, internships at large companies are
generally more flexible regarding roles. Some even involve rotations, where
you get to see a little bit of everything.

~~~
Creyels
You are right with that, and I do know what you mean. However my real point
was that you can't really generalize things and make a checklist-based
decision on those two, or in my case three (with founding) alternatives.

I personally think you should not make this decision on a too much
numbers/status/fact basis, but on a very personal or you risk to regret it
sooner or later.

------
adrianparsons
I worked for a (15 person) startup for a year and am now moving to a larger
(70 person) company. I can say that working at a startup lets you try a lot of
different things.

If you don't know what you want to specialize in a startup can be a great
place. Over the last year I did everything from coding to usability testing to
video editing.

At the startup, I worked with really talented engineers who cut their teeth at
much larger companies (AOL, Microsoft, financial services firms). Now I've
decided to specialize and am heading to a larger company to hone my craft.

------
lojack
Lets not forget the gloomy market coupled with outrageous student loans

~~~
veyron
The hurdle rate is still relatively low (US federal student loans can be
extended up to 25 years), so you can afford to work at a startup.

------
chrisjsmith
I disagree with point 5. A large company is a place to learn dysfunction and
politics.

However, having an understanding of them is important so it's probably a good
place to start. So perhaps I do agree with point 5 but in a different way.

~~~
thisisfmu
It's good to have observed it in the wild, at some distance, but becoming part
of such a tribe alters your perception of what is acceptable and qualifies as
good enough. Like a reverse Heisenberg effect.

~~~
chrisjsmith
Fair point well described.

