
How to get a job at a startup if you aren’t a developer - bjonathan
http://estromberg.com/post/4778188872/how-to-get-a-job-at-a-startup-if-you-arent-a-developer
======
Lost_BiomedE
“Any startup job you find on a job board will be one you don’t want.”

I wonder if this is true in areas where startups are not the in thing, like
Houston Tx. There are some reasons why I think it may not apply, such as how
conservative and big business the area is. But, I also know that I look to my
network for partners and employees, so I am left uncertain on this point.

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achompas
Good article, especially #4 -- offer a concrete skill.

A good friend is applying for fashion retail jobs, and I've told her that
showing your passion isn't enough. _Everyone_ is passionate about fashion--the
goal is to shape your experience so teams can understand why you're better
than everyone else.

Related to #4: what are some good books on online analytics?

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pavel_lishin
I imagine this his how non-devs feel when reading a lot of articles here. I
have absolutely no idea what non-developers do at startups, and if I were
having a dream where I was suddenly hired on in this position, it would feel
like your average "showed up to class with no pants for final you didn't study
for" nightmare.

~~~
jsavimbi
"I have absolutely no idea what non-developers do at startups"

Disclaimer: developer at technology companies.

Well, they'd better know how to sell, and sell well, if they want to get a job
in a lean business that simply doesn't have room for people who aren't
contributing directly to the bottom line. Another position is that of business
development. Soft skill, but really necessary to provide pre and post sales
support when the company becomes large enough that the CEO/COO can no longer
handhold each partner/client/vendor.

In my experience, marketing/hr/low-level product are always promotions given
to the poor bastard who spent a year faking it as the office manager.

~~~
18pfsmt
The last VC-backed startup I worked at, the marketing people were 3 Harvard
MBAs that kept the sales people away from the developers, and they helped us
figure out what product features were most relevant to implement. They also
got us the latest and greatest sample ASICs.

~~~
jsavimbi
That makes sense if you're not a technology-only company (see disclaimer).

The space is probably/could be crowded and they're going to need some sharp
assets to get the word out and obtain customers, but in my case where every
sale incurs more work from engineering, one has to balance it out or else
we'll end up with a bunch of over-eager sales people signing low-end deals and
a couple of angry, burned-out developers perusing HN wondering how their
hacker dreams turned into biz dev nightmare.

Coffee is for closers.

~~~
18pfsmt
Actually, we were a technology company. We developed embedded systems for
RFID/ NFC technology to sell and license to OEMs. Firmware for DSPs and MCUs
is some of the harder technology I've been involved with. I'm not sure I
understand your point.

FYI, ASIC stands for Application Specific Integrated Circuit.

~~~
jsavimbi
I thought you meant sneakers.

Again, it all depends on the maturity of the startup in question, the market
and the need for highly-paid non-technical people whose contributions can
bring home the bacon. If they don't, then they're just a drain on resources or
could just be there to prop up the appearance of success in the eyes of the
market or investors.

Did Dick Cheney actually run Halliburton or was he there to steer business to
the firm? I think empirical evidence would point to the later. So when you do
look around and wonder what exactly it is this person does in relation to
their job title/description, there may be more than meets the eye and in
personal experience nepotism has a lot to do with their presence as sometimes
it's just hard to finding the candidate that's a perfect fit and you may have
to just hire someone you know and hope they grow into the role.

I understand that a lot of people who read HN are young and tech-focused, but
there's a lot more to it than landing a job at a hot startup out of school and
the more one understands about their environment and how to apply their skills
appropriately, the easier it'll be for them to succeed.

------
edw519
I know OP means well, but this is some of the most misguided advice I've ever
seen on Hacker News...

 _1\. Know the tech landscape better than anybody else_

This is like saying, "Know God" or "Know the meaning of life". You'll be
chasing down something elusive and nebulous while the rest of us are learning,
building, and growing.

Also, you will _never_ know _anything_ better than anybody else, so just get
that self-defeating thought out of your head.

 _2\. Form an opinion and start a blog_

If you've been there and done that, please share your experience. We're eager
to hear about it. Otherwise, you should be listening, not talking. There are
enough worthless blogs out there. Please don't add another one.

 _3\. Be familiar with the startup culture - Each sport, industry, or college
has a unique culture, with its own lingo, success stories, and taboos. Startup
culture is no different._

2 things you can do with 4 possible scenarios:

a. Build stuff that delivers long term value to others and can sustain itself
as a business

b. "fit in"

    
    
      - If you do both a. and b., great.
      - If you do a. and not b., no one will care that b. is missing.
      - If you do b. and not a., you're adding little or no value.
      - If you do neither a. or b., you're adding little or no value.
    

In other words "culture", "lingo", "success stories", "taboos", are all non-
issues. Bullshit. They don't matter.

In the end, all that really matters (with rare exceptions) is a.

You can skip #3.

 _I’d also recommend hanging out on tech-heavy communities like Hacker News or
Reddit. Observe how people interact. Pay close attention to which articles and
comments get voted up or down. It will go a long way in figuring out what the
startup culture sees as valuable. Decide if these values mesh with what you
see as important._

Please don't do this. All you will learn is how a crowd behaves, which may or
may not have anything to do with what really matters.

If you want to come to Hacker News to lurk and learn, welcome! But don't get
caught up in what "the world thinks". This is a great recipe for the community
to experience eternal September and for you to become just another poser.

 _4\. Offer a concrete skill_

99% of the work in a start-up is either building or selling & implementing. If
you can do either well, great. If you can't, then learn how and forget all the
rest of the bullshit in this post.

 _5\. Take an internship_

Good advice, actually, for #4 above.

 _6\. Send cold emails_

Please don't. Anywhere else that's called spam.

~~~
aridiculous
I agree with a couple of your points but I think you might be overreacting.

When the OP said to hang out at HN or learn all about the culture, that's
really helpful for those who are completely unfamiliar with the whole
industry. A lot of smart kids have never entered this world and it's a good
primer. Just because they are new to startups doesn't make them hopeless -- I
arrived a couple years ago and spent a few months just getting acquainted
through tireless immersion.

Cold emails are fine, if they have an edge to them and are informed and
targeted. If you get emails from people who clearly put there heart into
writing it, I think it's at least worth a quick reply. You're not a celebrity.

And how else do you expect someone to get into the industry without some cold
emails or calls? As someone who just got their foot in the door, I can
definitively say one works at least twice as hard outside the industry than
when one gets a job. Have some respect for that nonpaid effort, I say.

That said, one should always be building up a defined skillset concurrently.

~~~
edw519
_I agree with a couple of your points but I think you might be overreacting._

You're probably right and if so, I apologize. I guess it's just my way of
venting my frustration with so many people talking when they should be
listening. To me, OP's post just seems like feeding fuel to that fire.

I would never want to discourage anyone from becoming part of our community.
It's just that some ways are much better than others.

 _And how else do you expect someone to get into the industry without some
cold emails or calls?_

Networking. Better to get out there without an agenda, meet people, and grow.
Most of us would much rather meet someone and get to know them than to just
delete another unsolicited email among hundreds of others.

Whether you email, network, or do something else, here's the most important
thing: have something of value to offer, and offer it. That will get you
noticed.

 _That said, one should always be building up a defined skillset
concurrently._

Definitely! This never ends.

~~~
nhangen
_Better to get out there without an agenda_

This is the key to real networking. Agendas often spoil the opportunity.

------
aridiculous
I had to learn most of this stuff on my own, but it's a very good summary to
pass on to my friends. Seems like startups are getting more and more
mainstream.

The problem is most college grads in non-technical fields generally don't have
skills beyond being smart, maybe. I was one of them. This wouldn't be too much
of an issue but most also don't like or aren't any good at selling. The way I
see it, you have to do something technically tangible or you have the sell the
lights out of stuff. If you can't do either, sad to say, you're fairly
worthless in early stage companies.

~~~
gersh
You could be a good writer or designer. Video skills can be useful. Research
skills can also be useful.

~~~
aridiculous
I'd agree with designer and possibly video, but I count those as technical
skills depending on the type of startup.

Writing and research, I think, have to be bundled with other skillsets at the
very early stages. If you have 2-3 people, you can't have a pure writer or
researcher.

------
Timothee
Regarding #4, and in particular "If it’s more of a product role, build
something!"

How would that work for a non-developer?

By paying someone to do it? (not necessarily easy. Not everyone has enough
entrepreneurial spirit to invest in their own idea, while still being valuable
to a startup) By making mock-ups, specs and publishing them somewhere? It
would seem fine to me, but I wonder if some could see that as being an "idea
guy" for not having something tangible and working to show.

~~~
Dramatize
What I'm doing is relaunching an older website that's already been developed -
but not promoted/maintained for the last two years.

This means I can work on what I'm good at (design and marketing) and use any
money coming in to pay a developer to make any changes I can't.

Was it Neil from CrazyEgg that does something similar? I remember hearing
something like that on a Mixergy interview.

------
acconrad
If you're not a developer, you should still learn how to code. At least
showing that you're willing to learn goes a long way so you can help with even
the little things, such as fixing pixels or checking in small bugs. Think of
it another way: would you join a renewable energy startup if you didn't know
some engineering (materials, chemistry, mechanical, electrical, et al)
fundamentals? How do you think you would do if put into an interview?

~~~
stevenj
Should developers learn how to do customer service? Sales? Biz Dev? Design?
HR?

~~~
DavidChouinard
Sure they should.

A developer casually reading a few books/blogs could learn pretty much all
those domains. The same can't be said of business guys doing the opposite.

~~~
greattypo
lol, only on Hacker News...

------
vishaldpatel
Hmm.. objective of any startup is to survive. This requires hard skills:

-> Being able to build the product / service.

-> Being able to sell.

-> Being able to market creatively (on a low budget).

-> Being able to take care of operations, legal, accounting, hiring.

Want to work for a start up in a non-technical role? No problem! Show em' that
you can do do one or more of the other essentials better than the incumbents,
who are probably too busy taking care of the technical bits anyway.

------
gnosis
Just because you're not a developer doesn't mean you lack technical skills.

Startups often need to fill some non-developer, technical roles, like QA team
members and sysadmins.

------
donofrip
I get a sense of a little non-developer hate going on below... so fair
disclosure, I am not a developer. I am an aspiring entrepreneur, and yes, I am
working on a web-based company. I also work on Wall Street, so I apparently
chose the other option Eric to which alludes.

The value add of a non-developer to a startup is pretty simple--they bring a
different perspective than a developer does. Diversity is a good thing. I'm
working on building something that I believe would be enormously useful, and
it approaches a problem in a way that hasn't been done online before. I think
the reason I was able to come up with this idea was precisely because I'm not
part of the "online" community. There are certain ways things are done when
building an online business that have become part of the "culture" to which
the article speaks. Being able to approach a problem from a point of view
without a preconceived or subconscious notion can add enormous value to a
startup. That said, I am becoming part of this community because I do need the
technical expertise to help build the product and it is easier to find someone
to partner with than learn to program myself (although I do know some).

It is the same as growing up reading and writing a western language. You don't
even consider the notion that text would be written or read in another
direction than left to right. Having a Chinese friend at a young age would
keep you thinking in different and more creative ways.

~~~
wglb
In startups, perspective, ideas, point of view all pale in importance to
execution.

~~~
donofrip
Obviously execution is critical; however, I cannot agree with you that
everything else pales in comparison to execution. You can execute
"successfully", but if what you build isn't something the client wants, then
you're wasting your time.

Depending on what you're developing, a business side perspective could be
invaluable. The financial services industry is full of inefficiency, as an
example to illustrate my point. I worked in equity research for a while and we
published reports that were simply pdfs of excel files (there are some
publishing tools out there like bluematrix). There are huge opportunities here
for a better publishing platform that is easy to use for someone who is not
technologically savvy (like research analysts). Having someone with the
insight into the industry could be very useful and would help a developer
identify and focus on developing and designing functions that would be useful
to the client. I'm sure more than one developer has wasted time developing
something only to get FEEDBACK (also know as perspective) from the client
(often business related when not a developer end-product) that the
functionality doesn't match what they need or expect.

I just cannot agree with your point of view here. In my opinion, ideas and
perspective are important, but then again, I am new to this. Can someone
explain to me why execution should be held above all else?

~~~
wglb
One example is Microsoft. They are often knocked for not being so innovative
as others in the space. However, they do excel at execution.

------
prpatel
1) Learn how to code 2) ..... 3) Profit!

------
kylelibra
Great post, incredibly helpful.

Especially number seven on the list. I get the feeling that any online job
posting decreases your chances of getting noticed by a significant amount. I
know in my company we only post stuff online because we feel obligated, we
don't give those applicants nearly as much credence as we would someone who is
referred by someone in our network.

~~~
enjo
Which I'd hope you would state openly in the job posting. There is nothing
more defeating for an applicant than to spend the time and energy putting
together cover letters and tweaking the resume for your company, only to be
disregarded from the start.

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gersh
A non-developer needs to have some skill, which can't be automated by a
computer. Such things include: design, writing, managing people, talking to
customers, investors, money and relationships. If AI becomes capable of
automating such tasks, their job may become obsolete.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> If AI becomes capable of automating such tasks, their job may become
> obsolete.

And factory automation and robotics have eliminated the needs for workers,
yup.

~~~
gersh
The workers need to be able to automate stuff or manage people, who do. Many
high-paid, unskilled factory jobs have disappeared. The jobs are doing things
that can't be easily automated. The more automatable the lower the pay.

------
evanprodromou
Step 1: learn to program.

