Ask HN: How do I make myself more valuable in the Bay Area startup scene?

[upstarrt]

HN,

After taking an accounting of my various work experiences over the past few years, I've decided that my ideal work environment is a web startup. This also coincides with my desire to move to the Bay Area for other lifestyle reasons.

Here is where it gets a bit more complicated. If I were a hacker, this would be pretty straightforward. But I'm not. My experience is much more on the marketing/copywriting/strategic communications side of things. I consider myself to be a very talented writer and communicator, and have been involved in some pretty notable projects in that capacity. Unfortunately, I can't help but feel that this skillset simply isn't very in demand in the world of early stage web startups.

So my question is this -- even if I know that these skills are what I'm best at (and what I truly like to do), should I pursue more sought after and in demand skills in this sector? If so, what are the skills I can learn to make myself more valuable and secure in my new pursuit? I imagine most answers will involve programming, which is fine, but please tell me which languages if so. I should also say that I've always found myself more drawn to UX/Design more than coding.

Thanks for any guidance.

[pg]

Depends on the stage of startup. If you want to work at an established startup, you could probably get a job doing marketing. If, as I'm guessing, you want to work an an early stage startup, there are 3 main things those need, in fairly sharply declining order: hacking, sales, and graphic design. So if you don't want to learn to hack, be good at sales and graphic design. (That "and" was not a typo. It's optimal if one person can do both, the way Alexis did for Reddit.)

[il → pg]

I strongly disagree.

I think marketing skills are incredibly in demand in an early stage startup, even more so than technical skills! Look at this recent HN post and what people would want to read about most: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2012959

If you're a nontechnical person joining a startup, don't bother learning to hack beyond a very basic understanding. You won't be any good at it for a while, and they probably already have smart technical founders who will tackle the difficult technical problems.

There are lots of brilliant hackers in the Bay Area. People who know marketing seem to be far more rare here, and as a result are highly sought after by the smart startups that have a real business model and understand they need marketing to succeed.

If you're actually good at copywriting and can drive serious traffic, you will have numerous startups literally BEGGING you to to take their money and run ad campaigns for them.

It's important to make a distinction here. If you come from a brand advertising background, then forget it, no startup will want to hire you.

If you know performance marketing, and can deliver conversions and predictable ROI, you can rapidly and easily get as many consulting clients(which lead to job offers, if you want) as you can possibly handle.

Go to startup meetups, mention that you know how to drive traffic and convert it, and before long you'll have a stampede of eager startup founders beating their way to your door.

[avree → il]

I work in marketing at a startup, and have worked at several in the past.

I'm not sure what startups you've worked for that beg you to take their money - maybe I've been working for the wrong startups!

I have, however, had startups pay me good sums of money for providing a skillset. Marketing at a startup is a different animal than marketing at a large corporation - you must be able to handle SEO, SEM, investor buzz, brand awareness, customer support (in many cases), audience research, and a general plan for pushing out the product.

Your ability to 'cold-start' a product will be crucial - you'll need to figure out how to target early adopters, reach out to press, etc. Having a good rolo-dex of connections helps here.

It's wrong that there's 'no demand' for marketing in startups, but it's hard to make blanket statements, as interest in early marketing depends on the type of the startup. Usually, UX/Graphic Design is hugely valuable. It's also important, however, to have at least some knowledge of the tech you're working with - it helps you make rational decisions and not recommend things that are technically near-impossible.

[maxawaytoolong → il]

If you're actually good at copywriting and can drive serious traffic, you will have numerous startups literally BEGGING you to to take their money

Can you name 10? or even 5?

[il → maxawaytoolong]

I'm not sure I should disclose which startups have approached me for this. But, trust me, this happens rather often.

[maxawaytoolong → il]

I've worked for startups for 15 years and we've never begged anyone to take our money, much less copywriters.

[sblom → il]

Can you even tell us what types of startups exhibit this behavior? Might be helpful to the OP.

[noahc → pg]

PG listed hard skills. But a general willingness to work hard, be tough, and be resourceful will go a long ways.

Startups should be defined as the ability to manage a shortage of resources for an often changing goal.

[heykarri]

I'd recommend dropping "copywriter" from the description, as there is (in my experience) no interest in paying copywriters in startups (perhaps some minor interest if you can couch it in being killer at SEO, but even then, not usually).

Startup marketing is typically an "army of one" job, particularly early stage.... so, yes, graphic design chops and a working knowledge of HTML will allow you to create marketing materials (email newsletters, landing pages, Facebook tabs, blogs, etc.) without requiring you to take design resources from the product side. This will speed things up and increase your value immensely.

Overall, I'd work on branding myself as a marketing hacker - someone who can handle marketing top to bottom, grow the business, and become the leader of a larger team should things take off.

Hope that's helpful.

[alain94040]

Super easy. Join a bootstrapped startup for free. If you are any good, you'll do a good job and get noticed.

For instance, go to my co-founders meetup and offer to help the projects you find interesting. You'd be amazed: help is always welcome.

After 6 months, you can have a portfolio of startups and prove that you provide value. That's when you get your next great gig.