

Hopelessly perfect: Why it’s smart to work at a no-shot startup - g0atbutt
http://thestartupfoundry.com/2011/07/07/hopelessly-perfect-why-its-smart-to-work-at-a-no-shot-startup/

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gamble
Ugh. This article confuses being a _founder_ of a poorly run startup with
being an employee. At least as a founder, you probably learn something of use.
Aspiring to be a employee at a company where no one knows what they're doing
is soul-killing career suicide.

> Make a mistake at the bottom of the spectrum, and there’s so many people
> making so many mistakes that it’s unlikely your mistakes will give you a bad
> reputation. On the other hand, screw up a company with $41mm in funding, and
> those mistakes are likely to follow you.

No. Totally wrong. Work for a startup that no one has heard of, and they will
never care about your successes any more than your failures. Work for an
startup with a great team and you'll build relationships that help down the
line regardless of how badly the company does. Barring gross incompetence,
hardly anyone holds business failure against founders, much less employees.

~~~
randall
True in Silicon Valley, but I've witnessed people (in publishing specifically)
who were spectacular screw-ups at publishing /startups/ and they screwed
themselves over professionally.

In Silicon Valley, screwups don't follow you. In other industries, I think
they can / do.

I'd also emphasize that I know my share of YC founders, and I have a pool of
people who want to work in startups but don't have a ton of skills, nor any
real resume from which to speak from... and for people who aren't willing to
pack up and move to SF for some reason (family, money, etc.) joining a crap
no-shot startup is at least something, compared to the nothing they're going
to get by working at a gas station.

~~~
wisty
Is that rational? I can see why, for example, airlines don't get a second
chance. If you even give off a whiff of cluelessness in aviation, nobody will
want to touch you again - there's too much at stake.

Other industries are less risky, but a lack of professionalism can still be
expensive - people are relying on you to help carry their project.

On the other hand, there's plenty of cases where management is just too thick
to deal with risk.

In either case (risk is bad, or management can't handle it), screwing up can
be a career limiting move.

~~~
dpritchett
With publishing at least there can be a high opportunity cost in partnering
with a startup. Content providers might be losing access to exclusive
publishing channels that bring a lower risk. If you get exclusive rights to my
content for 18 months and don't make me any money with it then you might just
have burned a bridge.

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TheSkeptic
"If you’ve already identified that your goal is not to work for soulless
companies, you need to start working for startups."

This is a false choice. It assumes that most established companies have no
"soul", but that most startups do. This is simply not true.

"Crucially, the biggest advantage of working lower down the spectrum is that
mistakes don’t stick with you. In general, mistakes don’t typically stick with
you, but the further up the spectrum you go, the tighter knit the community.
Make a mistake at the bottom of the spectrum, and there’s enough people making
mistakes that it’s unlikely your mistakes will give you a bad reputation. On
the other hand, screw up a company with $41mm in funding, and those mistakes
are more likely to follow you."

Obviously, there are good mistakes and bad mistakes, but in general, making
career decisions based on where your mistakes will go unnoticed is a path to
mediocrity, or worse.

Anyone interested in progressing as a professional should think twice about
working at a company where major mistakes are of no consequence. It's hard to
improve yourself if you're surrounded by incompetence, and if mistakes made
out of ineptitude or negligence have no impact on your reputation, chances are
you're not working on anything that matters.

~~~
nostrademons
There's a lot of nuance in that choice that's unlikely to come across in a
comment.

You want to be in a company where you are accountable for your mistakes. You
do not want a company where those mistakes follow you. It's a very subtle
difference between them, but basically you need to be in a culture where each
mistake is a _learning_ experience, not a _shaming_ experience. Don't make it
again, but also don't worry about having made it.

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rriepe
There's no such thing as a big name startup.

Like my friend says, if you have an HR department, you are no longer a
startup. You have started. You are up.

~~~
alttab
I up voted because you have a point, but companies could have a big name, an
hr department but very little or no revenue or repeatable business model.
Unless it's bootstrapped and tiny, owing investors a return on their
investment either through additional financing rounds or net revenue sounds
like it's still starting/growing to me. I generally agree that once you are
doing it, you are doing it.

~~~
parfe
Once you have a department that dictates you get 4 days bereavement leave when
a parent, spouse, or child dies, 3 days off for a sibling, 2 days off for the
death of a step- relation and 1 day off for a cousin you are no longer a
startup.

I turned down a job at a company that wanted me to agree to those terms.

edit, Bonus Requirement From the Handbook:

Employees of [Redacted Inc.] are not to correspond with anybody who is not a
current customer or current employee of this company, without express written
permission from the CEO or the President.

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localhost3000
Your 3 months was my 3 years. Our biggest problem was that we were funded by
our founder to the tune of several million dollars. It took us 2 _years_ to
launch our product. The mix of having cash but no outside investors to report
to (we did in the end but by then it was too late to matter) meant there was
no urgency. We were insanely inefficient and slow moving. We lived in a bubble
for 2 years drinking our own koolaid. The founders were first time
entrepreneurs and all the staff were too young to know better. Though I
learned a ton (mostly about what not to do), it's a difficult to explain black
mark on my resume. Beware first time founders with inside $$.

~~~
dennisgorelik
Where did the founder get millions to fund you for two years?

~~~
localhost3000
Very successful career as a corporate exec

~~~
dennisgorelik
Yeap: that kind of money are dangerous for a start up.

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tobias3
Well as a real hacker you get that experience at the age of 12 when you join a
"team" to make a P2P MMORPG. After that you kind of learn to recognize
people+idea combinations which work and which don't work.

~~~
kalleboo
I don't get why this is downvoted because it's pretty much true. I definitely
learned to identify the kind of unproductive enthusiast teams without the
talent required to get anything done the blog post lays out from all the
"let's make this awesome game" forum endeavors of my youth.

~~~
jasonshen
It was probably downvoted because of the inference that this is the only path
for "real" hackers and that if you haven't had this experience by age 12, it's
over for you. There are many ways to gain product / building-things / startup
experience.

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jechen
There seems to be this perception that the startups who never get past seed-
stage (or end up raising any money at all) are automatically labeled as "no-
shot". I digress.

Nonetheless I find the post to be an interesting and insightful read and
continue to find myself awestruck at just how much the startup ecosystem has
grown and matured over the past few years.

~~~
randall
I took this out of the article... I should put it back in. No-shot is "deck is
stacked against you." Not "you will fail."

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mbesto
Did this for about a year. It was easily the best experience of my life. Once
you get to actually "feel" the ramifications of everything you do at work only
then can you really understand how a business operates.

This was for a 2-person founded start-up btw.

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softbuilder
This reminds me of "Build one to throw away; you're going to do it anyway."

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viandante
Frankly speaking, I think the most important would be to acquire those skills
usually needed in start ups. After that, you can work as a professional and
not a mere employee.

The issue then is: how do I acquire those skills (given that University will
not give you those)? And just there is not post on HN about this.

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makthrow
Heh. If you want to work at a no-shot startup PM me. You'd be full co-founder
along with myself and learn a crapload, as you'd be taking lead CTO role. I
can't say it's better than working for a big-name startup but I do think you'd
learn more because we can make mistakes as we go.

~~~
randall
It's unlikely that you'll find people this way... you should go meet people in
your area and see if there's anyone interested.

What's your startup? Why aren't you the technical guy?

~~~
makthrow
Hey Randall, that's good advice. i've just started meeting people in my area.
(Boston).

I'm not the technical guy because it's simply not my strength. I could
probably code the thing in a year but someone else could do it in a few months
with much better code. IN any case I'm building the prototype as solo founder
right now.

~~~
randall
If you're a first time founder, just code it yourself. Spend some time
learning how to code so you'll know how to sort through good and bad tech
folks in the future.

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Troll_Whisperer
I agree with one point-- working at any start-up, even a no-shot one, makes
corporate rules chafe all the more if you ever go back to that world.

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shareme
Its somewhat a fallacy..

Simple Logic..if the no-shot start-up is an option that best option is your
own-formed start-up. Do not buy BS from BS-artists or share-croppers if you
intend to be neither..

