Ask HN: How do you find cool startups you might want to work for these days?

14 points·readonthegoapp··8 comments

Do you just kind of look at HN and TC and a thousand other places? Or do you look for some particular problem or space you are interested in and start googling?

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Usually they find me, I advertise myself well through GitHub, blogging, and being active in the communities I specialize in.

I check the portfolio section on vc's websites, and I also follow/read TechCrunch.

AngelList is great for both. Better discovery than Product Hunt and there's also an application form. Applications via AngelList have extremely poor response rates, though.

One thing that can be particularly helpful is if you know someone at a VC firm, talk to them about startups. And of course, use your network and chat with ex-coworkers, etc.

Holy shit - is this a thing? I didn't go to Stanford, tho i did live in PA for a time.

You don't need to have gone to Stamford. If you have worked for a VC-funded startup, you likely have a path to a VC intro. If you haven't met a VC investor directly, you can ask one an exec to intro you. Its also worth checking to see if any coworkers have gone off to start or join startups as they can also intro you to VCs. It's also possible that some ex-coworkers may have joined a VC firm.

If you've only worked for big companies, it's probably worth checking to see if they've created a venture capital arm. Many do, including Coinbase, Google, Optum/United Healthcare.

Be a user of the startup. To do this: use startups. To do that: build things.

just browsing GitHub and bumping into interesting projects, that is it … at least sometimes works for me …

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