Introduction
As years go by, being in a startup is becoming a possible career choice for developers who has a risk appetite for the unknown.
But this does not mean making decisions to join a startup can be done blindly and treating it like a gamble.
Sure there is a handful of startups who had become big that was once a startup in the early years.
I would always suggest doing your due diligence before joining a startup.
I hope my understanding of facilitating tons of startup pitches with a VC and working a startup now.
Could help you to make a better choice on which startup to join instead of treating it like a gamble.
What Should I Look For In A Startup?
Picking the right startup could be hard for you especially when you will spending time to work in that startup.
So here is the list of things I would look out for when selecting a startup.
- What is the problem they are trying to solve for a market?
- What is the background of the founding team?
- Do they have a minimal viable product (MVP)?
- What is their unique selling point?
- Do they own intellectual property to protect their solution?
- Are they passionate of their startup?
- What is their culture like?
- What funding round are they in pre-seed, seed or series A or further?
- What is their salary for the role? Is it a market rate within the area you are residing in??
- What is their compensation benefits?
- What is your gut feeling after looking at the information above?
Technology is The Icing on the Cake
I'm pretty sure you might be wondering why is there no mention of technology like GraphQL, Web Assembly or my personal fluff words that is Blockchain or AI.
I personally believe that technology is just the icing on the cake regardless of the flavour of the month for a tech a startup is implementing or using.
I would look at the above and evaluate my skillsets based upon the job description.
Focus on The Problem
Software development has always been on solving problems for a user.
A startup is not any different than a software development team.
Just that they operate as a single entity with multiple moving parts to achieve the main objective.
If the startup's solution does not excite you, I won't suggest to you by not joining that startup.
Since you have to be ready to commit for the long haul of at least 3 - 5 years of your life.
Doing something that does not excites you can be a pain and life is too short for you to waste away.
Working Long Hours For a Startup
It is a given that you might need to go the extra mile to work long hours to help the startup to succeed.
Therefore you might need to be mentally prepared for working smart & hard on a long terms basis.
Do remember a startup is a marathon not a sprint.
Focus on working smartly on producing results instead of working long hours for both the short and long term.
As it could be detrimental to your health, productivity and mental well being.
Conclusion
I found that there is a couple of places you could research on the startup like Triplebyte, Keyvalues, AngelList.
Lastly, to speed up the research on a startup, talk to the developers who know anyone in that startup.
Following their company technical blogs or software developers who are working in that startup to get more information about that particular startup could help you greatly to land yourself into that startup.
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This post was originally posted on Max's blog at Choosing The Right Startup - Read Time: 3 Mins and Photo by Matteo Vistocco on Unsplash
Top comments (2)
Good write up Max :)
Thanks a lot, I hope it was useful :)