Work at a Startup 2012 | Hacker News Reader

Work at a Startup 2012

workatastartup.org

157 pointspg29 comments

>> How much salary and equity should you expect from startups at different stages?

Does anyone have any insight to share on this?

What are the odds of getting a 6 figure salary at a startup?

The odds are very good.

That's the one thing I really like about AngelList's job board (http://angel.co/jobs) – most startups list salary and equity ranges.

Thanks! After looking over the postings and realizing my W-2 from my Fortune 1000 IT job is more than any salary range listed, I think its time for me to sunset my 'work at a startup' dream, given my age(31), family, kids, mortgage, etc.

Bootstrapping my own looks like the only viable option for me. Now if I could only find an idea worth pursuing..

I have tons of ideas sitting around that I don't have time to execute on. I'll throw out two, have fun with them:

* taking advantage of modern technology ecosystem, replace the US Congress

* provide a replacement for the traditional movie theater experience that keeps all the good things, eliminates the bad things, and maybe adds in a few extra good things, especially taking advantage of the modern technology ecosystem

I have easily 20 more. But have time/body/money/energy constraints, and so have to prioritize. :)

Man, it does good to know that I'm not he only one it that situation, being one year younger I can understand it pretty good. Bad luck it took me a while to realize that a start-up was what I really wanted, mostl thanks to Paul Grahams essays. Well, maybe it's all about timing, and there I'm utterly convinced that even when you are older the timing will be right one day. The trick is to realize it.

It is close to physically impossible before series A at the majority of startups (exception for ones which achieve significant profitability early, but that's fairly rare in the Valley) and "it depends" after Series A. As always, sought after people whose skills provably make money and who negotiate better get better outcomes. (A little bird tells me than in certain disciplines mostly related to technical marketing proven people are getting contracting rates in the $X0,000 per month region. This strikes me as highly credible given what I know about those markets.)

Equity works in reverse: the more mature the company, the less you get. Ask the YC crowd for good numbers on that.

Would be great if the presentation videos are recorded in Justin.tv

They probably will be; we'll talk to them.

Interesting. It seems there's never room for non-tech project managers in start-ups. You know those guys with a formal business background, MBAs etc? Well, I don't see opps for them in the start-up space. Am I missing something?

I think that's probably because there just isn't much work for non-tech project managers in startups.

If the founders aren't fulfilling this role, they probably should be working for someone else.

Nope, you're not missing anything. Startup teams are so small that everyone on the team has to be able to add value by creating something tangible. There's no room for middle-management.

Tangible things are not the only way to add value to a start up. Popular start up methodologies, and I speak specifically of Lean Start Up and Customer Development, all have a strong focus on making sure you're building a minimum viable business, not just a minimum viable product.

However, the statistics are such that it's rare to have a start up team with the self-awareness to recognize this need connect with a non-technical person capable of satisfying it.

And "non-technical" doesn't mean "middle management". Or, more to the point of the OP, there doesn't seem to be room for anyone who's not a programmer. That's a lot of roles, IMO. (Case in point, I have a CS degree and extensive business experience and have no desire to be a "programmer.")

Agree. Top-management takes care of business development while the tech team develops the product per se. Anything added to the middle would be considered fat to a lean agile body.

I guess people with strong (not necessarily formal) business background are mostly the non-technical cofounders.

May 1 seems a little late to be issuing invitations for those of us who would need to be booking flights to make it out there.

Any chance of a quicker yes or no if we send our info right away?

As it is at least partially a recruiting event, the closer the invites go out to the event, the better they can match the invitees to the jobs they're trying to fill.

> The event is free, but since more programmers may want to attend than we have room for, we're asking would-be attendees to apply by submitting a resume. Founders of the companies that will be there will read them and decide who to invite.

Is this event really only for programmers? The language seems particularly exclusive.

Here's my rambling review/experience from a few years ago: http://matt.io/startup/Work_at_a_Startup_Review

(Reminder: I refuse to be held responsible for anything I say that's more than five minutes old, much less 628 days old.)

Can designers come too?

A live Ustream channel, for this, with questions being accepted from twitters would be appreciable.

This is a great event idea. I wish the some of the VCs around Boston or NYC would get together and do this for the East Coast.

http://nycstartupjobfair.com/

This sounds like something quite different - a career fair for students / recent grads.

Asking programmers for a resumé? Why not ask them for their Github profile or something like that instead?

Because not everyone has one. Some of us have Bitbucket. Some have Google Code and Sourceforge.

Nothing stops you from sending in a one line "resume" with your github url.

Wouldn't most programmers link to that in their resume?

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