"I work at a startup for the small team size, for the massive impact you make as an individual, for the team building experience, the hard times and the good."
I would rather build my own company. Why would I want to toil my life away at a terrible wage and extremely long hours, only to get a fractional percentage of the payout if the company is bought out?
After working at a startup, I don't think I would ever start one because I'm not interested in exploiting people when it comes work life balance or compensation.
I hope you don't mind me bookmarking this (very astute) comment and using it as part of my chat with folks as to why they shouldn't work for a startup.
And there's plenty of horror stories about startups: ridiculous long hours, lackluster pay, and then getting totally screwed on the promised partial ownership/shares when the company gets sold.
There's pretty much no way I'd ever work for a startup. Too much risk and little up-front reward.
1. I once had a guy approach me to be the technical co-founder and build the entire server side of his app(which was almost all of it) and he offered to pay me 8% over 4 years with a meagre monthly salary. A cofounder!
2. Another startup once interviewed me for an hour, went back to discuss with their board of directors, came back and interviewed me for another hours, went back and discussed for another half hour and then said they would get back to me in a week.
Such practices seem to exist in so many places, initially I had thought it was the normal way of getting things done.
If you don't want to work for a startup, then don't.
Many people find value in the experience whether we got paid or not. I'd rather work my ass off for a startup than spend money on an MBA.
I've been a part of five startups. One of them (and the financial collapse) resulted in ruining me financially in 2009, but it was my choice. No one told me to take the job.
Three were mine (two failed, one is in hypothesis mode). The other was with a millionaire and it also failed. I learned to look at things differently because of all of those experiences and my value as a consultant today is because of those experiences.
I know you can get screwed over by sketchy founders and unscrupulous venture capitalists. You should absolutely understand where you stand going in. Stock options are 100% worthless unless you have a startup that succeeds and you have a founder that is honest in their intentions. Even real equity can be diluted, so that's no guarantee.
But there are always cases where the first few hundred employees make a life's worth of wealth in a few years.
I hate these articles bitching about the startup world. If you're gonna bitch, maybe go take a job at a nice safe boring mega-corporation that will maybe just destroy your soul. You'll get paid on time and you'll work 40hr weeks, have PTO, health benefits. If that's what you want, then just go do that.
I wouldn't work for a startup, unless the pay was higher than than market (since there is more risk involved). I would also treat it as a job (IE: no insane hours).
All too often, people toil away their life for someone else's idea and then get kicked to the curb (it's happened to me a couple times too). If I'm going to be wasting my free time working, it's going to be for the possibility of a big payout..which will only happen if I own the company.
So what you're saying is that some people accept poor startup offers because they want to work for a startup so badly that the opportunity to do so outweighs the bad risk they are taking? How is that anyone's fault except their own?
In my opinion that kind of person is in serious need of a moment of clarity. And refusing to acknowledge that there are people in the world that see things differently is quite uncivil IMO.
When I was younger, I took several craptastic startup offers because of the allure of working for a startup. Not one of them panned out. But I also turned down offers from Autodesk and Nvidia at a time when accepting would have made me worth 50 to 100 million dollars today. Feeling loyal to those craptastic startups and also feeling somewhat that I had no other options were part of why I made those bad calls. Don't be former me.
One startup I worked at for about 2 months was very similar. I needed a job at the time and took what I could get.
The wage was fine, the hours were bulky but understandable. Little did I know that the founder wanted/expected probably double that. The nail in the coffin was when he lectured me on how the human body only really needs 4 hours of sleep a night and after 6 months we can re-evaluate my working schedule. Hah!
That for a mediocre wage, no benefits, and zero equity? The last 2 weeks he paid me the salary to find another job, I did zero work for him during that time.
'If your attitude towards the startup is that cynical, then you shouldn't be working for a startup. Go to bigco where they will pay you lots for doing nothing.'
That's just as cynical. There are bigcos that have fantastic projects AND pay you, as well as startups that offer poor pay and little equity in exchange for lots of hot air.
Unless it's Google or Facebook (or any other mature startup), I'd better be getting more than 2% if I'm being paid less than 50% of standard market rate. Otherwise, the equity is more of a nice bonus than the main selling point.
You're right, many startups will die. All the more reason why people have to be careful about exchanging salary for equity.
Yeah, at the end of the post I tried to reference this: You probably shouldn't work at a startup for the money per se. The real value is short cycles with users and being able to make decisions and ship.
This is also cautionary for startups. You have to be an actually rewarding place to work, otherwise there is literally no reason to work there.
Stories like this (and my own experience) kind of sum up why I don't intend to work for another startup unless it's one I've founded. Too many people out there are taking roles with <= 1% of equity and thinking that they're going to be part of something big. Instead, they have no power to make decisions and make less money than they should. Working for a startup because it's a startup is always a bad idea.
It’s a really fucking bad time to be joining startups. They’re picky, offering shit comp on top of it, and have very little chance of a sizable liquidation event for employees in a long time.
Idk if I’ll join a startup again in the next few years. It’s basically taking salary only - which can be anywhere from 1/2-1/4 of my normal pay. Why waste your time?
I hope one day startups will offer something of value again. For now, it’s a race to the bottom.
Underpaid and overworked. That is what one gets out of startups. I unfortunately seem to be permanently stuck grinding for startups (10+ years). Don't do it to yourself. It isn't worth it.
Yes I've worked for a startup. Yes I did long hours. Yes I learned that's not sustainable and not a good way to make things work.
So, no, I won't do it again.
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