
How to Convince People to Join Your Start-up - acav
http://www.thedailymuse.com/entrepreneurship/how-to-convince-people-to-join-your-start-up/
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potatolicious
My response, in two parts:

\- Whatever

\- Pay me

Here's the baseline: pay your people what they are worth and build something
worth building. Everything else - free beer, foosball, catered lunches, tall
ceilings, hardwood floors, is just details.

This may be my curmudgeon coming out (I'm in my 20s, WTF), but this really
rubbed me the wrong way:

> _"The Possibility of Making a Lot of Money"_

This is a myth that needs to die, and founders need to stop perpetuating it.
It's insulting to be approached like that, with the assumption that I'm going
to be so wowed by your beanbag chairs and artisanal coffee that I lose the
ability to do basic arithmetic.

The amount of equity I see being tossed around to employees - even relatively
early ones - is pathetically little, while many founders strut around as if
they're writing your yacht check personally with a 0.1-0.2% offer.

If the amount of equity you're offering is supposed to trump cash, you better
be bringing a _lot_ of it to the table. But guess what, you're probably not.

If you're not willing to pay market salaries, you can either bring >1%+ equity
to the table or GTFO.

> _"In a successful start-up, the potential financial upside that comes from
> stock options can far outweigh a low base salary."_

 _LIES_ [1]

[1] Barring Black Swan events.

~~~
rdtsc
> It's insulting to be approached like that

You are smart you won't but many kids will. You'd be amazed how much free
lunches, and free espresso can do. The job needs to be cool because they need
to be able to tell themselves that they work in a cool place and tell their
friends that they work in a cool place. That story is worth quite a bit.

Not only will they believe it, they will also work 60 hour weeks to make it
happen.

They only way I can see a trade-off is if they give me a lot more vacation
time. Not 2 or 3 weeks but 6+. Can't pay me enough? Ok, good, let me have free
time at least so I can relax, travel or work on my won projects then.

~~~
fakeer
Working on your project regularly(as in everyday, not even every week) is
entirely different from working on it every six months or each month using one
of those extra leave days or weeks. So, the extra leave is hardly a worthwhile
compensation if you are being paid less and working insanely more hours than
_normal_.

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msutherl
How to convince me to join your startup: be an interesting person and do
interesting things.

This could include:

    
    
      - making an office that's actually a nice space to be in
      - creating an environment that respects constant learning and 
        knowledge exchange
      - structuring the environment around well-considered principals
      - writing, and fostering a community of writing (structured thinking)
      - being funny, and fostering a community of humor (enjoyment of life)
      - having a story about why the problems you are solving are important 
        and constantly repeating it
      - being harshly critical of your mission, constantly re-evaluating
      - actively studying philosophy, economics, psychology, business, art,
        literature, religion, science, music, etc.
    

I didn't read the article.

~~~
fakeer
Things like "number of working hours" and "free weekends" - you didn't find
important enough they are part of one of your points?

>> _\- actively studying philosophy, economics, psychology, business, art,
literature, religion, science, music, etc._

It's like the free lunch thing pitched by start-ups, isn't it?

It's very simple. _Give me money and I'll decide what to do with it because I
know better about myself than you do_.

~~~
msutherl
Good sir, it is my intention to have a good life. I may achieve a good life by
purchasing freedom on the dime of my master or by associating with righteous
causes in the company of great people. Of course I would prefer to have both,
but given a choice, I would pick the latter.

As for "number of working hours" and "free weekends", if one is prepared to
make a sacrifice in the name of their beliefs, working many hours and losing
weekends can be judged to be a necessary part of that sacrifice. During the
few times that I've been able to align my beliefs with my work, I have readily
dedicated the majority of my time to the task at hand.

For those who are not willing to make such a sacrifice, I suppose I would
think it too obvious to mention. Of course you should never accept such
conditions. I've never been forced to work more than 40 hours, nor have I
known anybody who has, and so honestly the possibility of such a thing
happening doesn't come readily to mind. Civilized countries have laws
protecting people from such things.

I would agree, however, that most if not all startups are not truly a
"righteous cause" worthy of personal sacrifice, and that is why I don't work
at a startup.

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droithomme
This is the same article that is posted here every week by a different author.

The author always explains how health insurance, pension, benefits, child
care, vacation and competitive salary are not important, because those are not
things their start up wishes to offer. What the reader is told should be
important to them is teamwork and an opportunity to work on something
"meaningful", which means what the author is working on and personally
interested in. In addition, this is "altruistic" or "nonprofit". And then,
stock options will make you rich at this altruistic nonprofit endeavor.

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r0s
I've got a real problem recruiting smart people to my ideas. Here's the issue
from my point of view:

Lay people are easy to convert, you can simply answer questions intelligently.
Someone with no interest or experience in the area isn't very emotionally
invested either way, and can be convinced with ease.

On the other hand, those with real knowledge or experience are _also_ easy to
sway, but once you show them a glimmer of potential, credibility is on the
line. The inevitable response to a good idea is a quick reactionary criticism.
"Yeah that's a good idea, but it would be much better if you did X". It seems
like a kind of flexing, or posturing to one-up your concept. I've encountered
this several times now.

My reaction is to exhaustively answer questions and politely offer answers.
This tactic seems to be met with defensive resentment, and it really sucks the
excitement out of the conversation.

This is a real communication problem for me, I'd appreciate any advice.

~~~
rogerbinns
Why are you treating what they say as a criticism? You are explaining how your
ideas are level 10, and they are saying how to take it to level 11. Note that
it builds on what is there, and they are excited and positive. To them it
probably sounds like you are rejecting what they are saying hence the downward
spiral.

A great way to counter this sort of thing is not to reject it, but to pencil
it in for later. "That is interesting. Our plan is to get an MVP out the door
and find market fit, and then we will be in a better position to do X." You
can then discuss whatever is in common between their X and your existing
stuff.

~~~
r0s
Well I could have worded that differently. Sometimes it's a good addition like
you suggest, I think I handle that gracefully.

More often the response is more "The problem with that is..." which I counter
with "here's the answer to that" which after a while gets frustrating, I
suspect. I don't do half-baked ideas, I over-plan if anything.

~~~
rogerbinns
There is always the possibility you are actually wrong :-) You also realise
you don't have to "correct" them or get the last word in? Smile, thank them
for their feedback/input and move on. And if you are so confident you are
right then why even talk to these people?

If you are trying to recruit them then you are doing a sales job, and you'll
likely encounter the same things when dealing with prospective customers,
partners, investors etc. Sometimes people just need to think out loud, so give
them enough space to do so. You may find them coming around given a little
time.

Also realise they are trying to work _with_ you. If you shut them down then
they'll realise they'll just have to follow your orders (ie not a
collaboration) in which case their experience has little value to you, as does
the relationship to them.

~~~
r0s
That's reasonable. Thanks! I'm going to re-examine some existing relationships
because of this advice.

------
aashaykumar92
"Aside from the official interview, we often take candidates to drinks,
dinner, or coffee to get to know each other in a more casual environment, and
we make sure they have the chance to get to meet multiple members of the
team."

I really like this one, mainly because it seems to be overlooked by so many
companies today. Recruiting smart brains is one thing, but recruiting smart
brains that will work well in your company's system, in and outside of the
office, is just as important. Meeting in a casual setting is far different
from having a business casual interview. Not to mention, taking interviewees
out also shows them that the employees also have fun and that is something
that everyone their cares about, not just says on their Jobs page.

~~~
MaybiusStrip
Although as an add-on to that, many people abstain from alcohol for a variety
of reasons (not because they're "no fun" or stuck up) so I'd leave that out to
avoid making potential candidates feel uncomfortable.

~~~
mikestew
I don't drink (and for a variety of reasons), and I don't associate going to a
bar with drinking alcohol. Yes, I understand that drinking alcohol is the main
profit center of a bar. But if people want to go to a bar, fine we'll go to a
bar and I'll have soft drinks or non-alcoholic beer (as long as it's not
sucktacular O'Douls or the like).

I can see the recently-sober recovering alcoholic being the sticking point
here, and I don't have a good answer for that possibility. So maybe you have a
good point. But for the religious/philosophic/recovering-but-far-enough-along-
to-go-to-a-bar I don't see a problem.

EDIT: now that I read the actual quote, it occurs to me that one can just
throw out multiple options: drinks at a bar or coffee? The smart candidate
picks coffee, drinker or teetotaler, to avoid the influence of alcohol in
front of a potential employer. :-)

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laurentoget
This article would have been incredibly insightful if it had been written in
1994.

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KMinshew
I'd add, the possibility to be part of a community greater than any one
company, if you're in a tech hub and recruiting someone from corporate

------
rdl
Not crashing my mobile browser (ie not using OnSwipe) would be a start.

~~~
mikestew
I didn't bother reading the article because of that stupid sidebar thingy that
chases you down the page. Maybe I'm the only person that finds it annoying,
but there is nothing on the web I need to read so badly that I'm willing to
put up with it these days. And, yeah, OnSwipe's starting to get on my nerves,
too.

And in a pathetic effort to remain on-topic, I'm unlikely to work at your
company, either. Such window dressing over substance (I gather from comments
that the article wasn't much) gives me a possible hint that my compensation
may suffer the same fate. Bean bag chairs and a kegerator don't add to my
401K.

~~~
rdl
I assume you don't mean _my_ company. We're not really hiring right now, but
we'd be big on good working environment (private offices and/or
wfh/remote+trips), great hardware, fun/meaningful stuff to work on, and either
great pay+find-your-own-benefits or good pay+good benefits.)

