Ask HN: How do I enter the startup industry? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do I enter the startup industry?

How do I get involved in the start-up industry? Where do I get information about what is happening in the industry other than reading HN everyday? I applied to a few jobs on angel.co and workatastartup, but got a few rejections (as expected, so not a problem) and no leads. I don't mind starting a business or working in an already existing one, but how do I get started/get in/distinguish myself?

Are startups okay with inexperienced (no internships/full time experience)? I am about to finish my bachelors and looking for a place to work or make my own place to work.

I don't have a startup business idea, but I'd like to get more involved in the community to see where I may be able to contribute.

Any tips/advice and recommendations are welcome! Thank you :)

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What got my foot on the door was to have a side project, not any MVP but a finished product with nice UI, well written README page etc. That would be a good start to go along with leet code etc.

If you have some time you can afford to invest, help out on a popular open-source project (one that you're interested in, and that has lots of open issues which need curating/investigating/fixing). This will help you:

1. Build work experience for your resume 2. Develop expertise with the software that the project uses and produces 3. Generate ideas for your own startup 4. Meet and interact with prospective customers for your own startup, or prospective coworkers at other startups where you might like to work

Do that for 6 months or a year, and then try applying to startups which use that open source project (or start your own business solving a common problem that users run into with that project).

If you're an engineer, the path is very straightforward. HN may not like this path, but it is tried and true and has never failed any individual.

1. Practice leet code until you can solve all medium and some hard questions.

2. Apply cold or find people on blind, LinkedIn, etc willing to refer you.

3. Use your leet code skills to pass the interview.

If you do all 3 steps, I guarantee you will get a job in startup world. These steps may have challenges but all are achievable of you put in the hrs.

Bonus: do well in that job for 2 years and then you will be able to hop companies if you like

My understanding is its only the top startups asking leetcode, most startups are scrappy. An engineer that can solve leetcode hards can just go make 400k in salary + public market equity

This might be outdated advice. None of the jobs I applied for last year asked anything past medium difficulty. I think many places realize it's very gameable and has a lot of false positives/negatives.

Startups are also more likely to hire people who are not very smart but can get the job done, so this might be more suited to big companies than small ones. Plus most of them have maybe 3 serious applicants, so they probably won't test you too hard.

However, it could be that leetcode is used much less for senior positions.

work for free

That is how I did it. I was doing my Masters in Computer Engineering and my thesis advisor was consulting to a startup and made the introduction. The startup flamed out, but the experience I gained lead to two jobs with multinationals (in succession) which mostly made up for the lost income.

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