most startups have bogus business plan: the recession is worldwide, and the web2.X gold rush is about selling productivity to startups (mainly). Like in the gold rush the one who are making actual money are not the one digging gold but the landlord selling the "startup ground" (incubators), and the companies selling the tools to dig. Secondly whatever they say no silver bullets appeared in the last 10 years: the mythical good developers with a productivity = 10x average (quantity & quality) are still a resource. They are scarce, I have met some, I don't belong to them. As a result, business plan relies for their costing on a resource that is very unpredictable. As a result companies relying too much on "new technologies" based their hiring policy on a brute force attack.

Wait, you tell me there are a lot of devs on the market? No, there are a lot of clueless young people on the market with a huge student loan that studied CS but that maybe the worst developer ever but have a strong incentive to get hired (cheat): they have to reimburse their loans before they sleep under the bridge.

So, brute force attack require to hire a lot of expensive broken arms. If I were a recruiter, I would never hire a student with a loan to refund that young I would prefer an autodidact that understand the basic of economy: don't spend money you don't have and don't be a sheep.

Lastly the money for startups even if QE is turning in all worldwide economies is not there! Central banks are printing bank notes like mad men (China, Japan, US, Europe...) but this money is directly used in stock options and the bank never landed that few money (or when they do the compound interests are just mad). And public and private debts are fucking high. The economy is on the brink of a bubble explosion for which new startup are responsible.

So there is no money to turn startup that don't master their costing/pricing in real companies. (no money available on the credit market)

Yes basically startups is a phony ecosystem.

My advice: have balls.

Go for companies that do not label them startups that seems «unsexy», even with lower wages, and accept the job after you accept and understand their mission/business model.

Maybe helping family planning communicate better on their mission can be more satisfying in life than helping a delusive «self made man» have is first million before 25 based on a ponzi scheme (buying tools to startups that buys me tools without generating new products is a little mad, isn't it?).