Ask HN: startup jobs for the experienced, non-technical? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: startup jobs for the experienced, non-technical?

19 pointsseldo5 comments

I have a friend who has worked in financial services and management consulting for 8 years. He's got a lot of really valuable skills and experience in running quantitative analysis, building presentations, and managing teams, but now he's looking for something more interesting.

It seems to me that there are a bunch of early to mid-stage startups in financial services (e.g., banksimple, LendingClub, Mint before it was acquired) that probably have a need for somebody with his skills. Are you one of those startups? Or, if you had those kind of skills, what sort of companies would you be looking at?

I figure this is worthy of being an Ask HN as there are lots of non-technical types who read HN these days and are interested in breaking into startupland, but might not be aware that there's a need for people with more than just coding skills.

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I've spent some time thinking about this in the past because my former long-term partner wanted to get out of being a management accountant into working in startups like me.

By the time a company is looking to employ a CFO or even a full-time accounts person, they're probably no longer "a startup".

From my experience financial service startups tend to either have founders with domain experience or actually rely on a third party platform for the financial service aspect. To give examples of that, BankSimple's two founders "previously consulted in the banking sector" (whatever that means) and Mint was really about lead-gen - the actual financial services bit was handled by a 3rd party platform.

I even know that one of the popular '2.0-style' online accounting sites doesn't even have anyone professionally qualified to do accounting on their staff. They just read books or ask accountants as needed for product advice.

If I was a VC I wouldn't invest any money in a financial services startup that was relying on an employee to provide the domain experience - it's got to be at the founders level (or like Mint, not actually about financial services at all).

The bottom line is that there are plenty of smart, professional people out there whose background, experience and qualification simply don't offer much to a startup.

The only real option I can see for your friend is to actually start a startup himself/herself and be the CEO. The financial services experience will help them with running the business (accounts, planning, etc) but their management consulting experience may be a hindrance when it comes to leading and managing a bunch of hackers.

I personally would never hire an MBA to work in a startup, in any position. Perhaps your friend doesn't have an MBA but hopefully you can see where I am coming from.

Thank you. It amazes me how aggressively technical founders try to find sales/bizdev folks, when domain/industry knowledge is this massive void waiting to be filled (and would help sales efforts immensely whether it be with the product of raising money).

I'd also say that as management consultant, you are intimately exposed to the problems that organizations face. Not only will you have an exposure to unique industry knowledge, you will actually be able to find niche markets that outsiders don't know exist--this seems particularly true for B2B ideas.

It depends on his skills. You say "building presentations, and managing teams", those are not really skills a startup needs (ie. they wouldn't hire someone just for those).

I get the feeling his quantitative analysis skills won't suffice either.

I would make a better list of skills that those startups may need, as in "I could help Banksimple do X or Y". Something very practical. Once he has those, get in touch with them and talk to them. Like, really, what could he have helped, say, Mint with, practically?

It's just that consulting and stuff isn't really a good preparation for the startup world; consulting is not truly (often) about getting things done, startups are.

BOOM!

I have to echo what Peter says, having worked in Consulting and Investment Banking I would say the skills gleaned would be more suited to say a VC role? From there he would get more relevant experience and could ultimately move to one of their portfolio companies (If that's his aim).

Top thing would be to be the subject matter expert and own product and customer needs for something he is an absolute expert in.

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