<story><title>Want to found a startup? Work at one first</title><url>https://blog.lawrencejones.dev/learn-at-scale-up/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jchonphoenix</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve worked at multiple startups sub 50 to &amp;gt;1000 (unicorn status) and have founded and sold my own company. I&amp;#x27;ve also worked at a few of the FAANGs. This is common advice, especially among VCs since it&amp;#x27;s one of the key benefits used to pitch prospective employees on giving up that fat FAANG salary, but in my personal experience, it&amp;#x27;s not so cut and dry.&lt;p&gt;Working in a startup will brand you as a startup person and help you meet VCs which may make it easier to raise. It&amp;#x27;ll also show you the problems that that particular startup faces and give you n=1 degree of pattern matching. On the flip side, something like YC can give you the same benefit or just shipping a for-profit side project on the side. Additionally, given how poorly run most startups are today, I&amp;#x27;d posit that you&amp;#x27;re actually in more danger of learning the wrong lessons than the right lessons by joining a startup. At the end of the day, the truth is likely to be Peter Thiel&amp;#x27;s observation that joining the right, highly successful, high growth startup as a very early employee is a great way to learn exactly 1 method of starting a successful company--the way that company did it. But if the startup you join isn&amp;#x27;t that rocketship, you&amp;#x27;ve only learned how to (or how not to) achieve that particular path of failure or mediocrity.&lt;p&gt;Not particularly great advice though, because then the challenge becomes identify those startups. And if you could do that reliably, I&amp;#x27;d suggest you switch careers into VC instead :)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>qqqwerty</author><text>There is way more than one lesson to learn from each startup. You will hopefully learn how to hire (and possibly fire) people. You will get insight into the nitty gritty of keeping the lights on at a company (taxes, payroll, office leases, etc...), and you will get familiar with the typical fundraising cycle. Most people don&amp;#x27;t appreciate how fast 18 months to two years of funding can run out. Going through that stuff once or twice when you don&amp;#x27;t have the pressure of being the founder can be very beneficial. And while going through an accelerator can be a substitute, I can&amp;#x27;t imagine that encountering a lot of this stuff for the first time while trying to start your first company would be anything less then very stressful.&lt;p&gt;For most employees, the best deal for them financially is to go the FAANG route. But I absolutely recommend working at a startup if you are hoping to one day start your own. It should be said that most startup employees are not going to start their own company (even ones who think they will). So certainly keep that in mind. But I suppose another benefit is working at a startup is probably a good way to gauge if starting a startup is something you could handle. After having worked at one for a while, I have certainly come to more realistic understanding of what kind of startup I would be comfortable founding. I almost certainly would prefer to bootstrap a small project rather than go the VC route, but I think I would feel pretty comfortable taking VC money if the opportunity called for it. But I have also come to realize that the best fit for me in my next role is probably not as a founder, but most likely as a very early employee of another startup. But this time around I will have a much better idea of what to look for in the founding team.</text></comment>
<story><title>Want to found a startup? Work at one first</title><url>https://blog.lawrencejones.dev/learn-at-scale-up/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jchonphoenix</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve worked at multiple startups sub 50 to &amp;gt;1000 (unicorn status) and have founded and sold my own company. I&amp;#x27;ve also worked at a few of the FAANGs. This is common advice, especially among VCs since it&amp;#x27;s one of the key benefits used to pitch prospective employees on giving up that fat FAANG salary, but in my personal experience, it&amp;#x27;s not so cut and dry.&lt;p&gt;Working in a startup will brand you as a startup person and help you meet VCs which may make it easier to raise. It&amp;#x27;ll also show you the problems that that particular startup faces and give you n=1 degree of pattern matching. On the flip side, something like YC can give you the same benefit or just shipping a for-profit side project on the side. Additionally, given how poorly run most startups are today, I&amp;#x27;d posit that you&amp;#x27;re actually in more danger of learning the wrong lessons than the right lessons by joining a startup. At the end of the day, the truth is likely to be Peter Thiel&amp;#x27;s observation that joining the right, highly successful, high growth startup as a very early employee is a great way to learn exactly 1 method of starting a successful company--the way that company did it. But if the startup you join isn&amp;#x27;t that rocketship, you&amp;#x27;ve only learned how to (or how not to) achieve that particular path of failure or mediocrity.&lt;p&gt;Not particularly great advice though, because then the challenge becomes identify those startups. And if you could do that reliably, I&amp;#x27;d suggest you switch careers into VC instead :)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>xivzgrev</author><text>I agree. I joined a few smaller startups and saw plenty about how NOT to do things. Only one I joined a larger company did I feel happier (in hindsight). And now if I went back to a startup, I’d feel more confident about whether the company is run poorly and how much I can help it.&lt;p&gt;Some problems are organizational immaturity and can be fixed. Some problems come from leadership and won’t change as long as those leaders are there.</text></comment>