Hi All, what can help me join an early stage startup and grow up to the top close to the founders within a year? I want to be in the middle of the action
Has anyone here done it before?
If they have the right culture then showing excellency in your role, helping out others in the team, having opinions on decisions taken (not just for the sake of it) should help you get closer to the decision makers.
Remember that at an early stage startup, everything revolves around the product, and you will be rewarded for aligning with that.
Speaking from experience, you will be involved in "the action" in a team of 30 people either way
Thanks for the answer. This is what I’m hoping for. I want to be involved in the action and show some quick wins and make impact so that I’m noticed and not lost in the noise.
It’s important I do well at this role as I have FOMO about leaving Amazon
Don't worry, you'll have a lot of fun building the product. It'll be a different experience, lots of iterating, lots of responsibility, big wins and losses.
You'll learn a lot as long as the founders foster a good culture
remote or office? how many members totally?
I work at Amazon
But I’m considering joining an in person startup with 24 people. I will be the 25th or so employee
role?
By working 24X7 for peanuts. If they even suspect you being not satisfied with the pay or crib about WLB, its game over.
This is the most realistic answer. Even if you’re good at what you do, you’d be cast aside if you seem like a 8 hour work, then fuck off kinda guy.
Sad, but true.
Not really. That's totally a wrong advice in my opinion.
Working 24*7 is detrimental to productivity as well as the employee's health. No sane leaders will ever want that.
But yes, in an early stage startup, deadlines are something that is really important and it wouldn't be a typical 9-5 job. One should only choose such a job if they believe in the idea/product and don't mind doing more than what the job asks you to do! And you would do it without thinking it as a job even for less pay simply because you believe in it and you want the product to succeed
Align yourself with the vision of the founders. Understand what exactly they are building and what their target market is. Actively take part in key decision meetings and propose your ideas and solutions which you think will add something useful or solve existing problem, thereby increasing the value and UX of the product
Thank you! This makes a lot of sense. I’ll try to take part in meetings. Tho this is something I am not great as as I tend to be a bit weak on the communication side. My dev skills are pretty good tho
You don't really need to be super vocal or extrovert pro max ultra. Just need to come out of the "I'm a dev" mindset and towards "I'm a dreamer who does what it takes" mindset. It helps you think like a user while thinking like the owner of the product. Helps you take a balanced business decision on how you can have max profits to run the business while keeping customers happy.
A friend of mine is working at a leading financial services company with over 100k employees. He feels like he'd want to be part of something smaller, create more impact and help it grow rather than be just a part of the crowd.
Where s...
I feel like this is a general problem that people who join startups in really early stages face. They get hired to do a function, then once the startup picks up, someone more senior gets hired and they’re practically demoted.
This is h...
I’m 27 and have been working with startups for majority of my career now( total 4.5 years)
I have two options and I can’t decide what to do?
Option 1: startup in growth phase (media services company)
