Don't work for empty promises, get everything on paper

It’s just initial stage, not sure how should I go about it. I would rather ask for some founding role?

Software Engineer

Even their promises on paper is worth shit. Try to get max on monthly sal.

Consultant

Ask equity if you think it can become big.. ask money if you are unsure.. but don't do it for free.

Money.. not esops.. not bonuses.. cold hard cash.

Analyst 

I am going to start working in building a product in a startup as a Backend developer. I was approached by 2 of the founders with their design and vision. I really liked it and thinking on working ...

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

I am going to start working in building a product in a startup as a Backend developer. I was approached by 2 of the founders with their design and vision. I really liked it and thinking on working on the same.

But I was confused how to proceed with it? Shall I ask for money or some position? I don’t have any experience of it. Please suggest.

What do you look for when you join founders and build a product?

What do you look for when you join founders and build a product?- Grapevine

Want to build a AI startup. Finding it impossible as 
1) Incumbents with distribution and data will easily build AI to their products
2) I don’t have PhD to build something truly innovative.
3) For consumer space, I don’t think it’s possible to build a new device or a OS etc (Incumbents again!)

I seriously wonder how startup founders start something! Do they just BS VCs about nice ideas and raise money? Any tips *from actual founders*  will be useful

Can’t think of good startup ideas!

I've a great idea and it's validated after talking to more than 50 founders/head of sales.

Questions -
1. What's the process of getting a domain/and checking if the domain/product name is not a brand name globally anywhere?

2. Wrt raising funding, any founders here who can throw some light on how much salaries you used to take? I am not very inclined towards bootstrapping rn.

3. What were the challenges wrt starting your website, getting it validated by running ads etc? Maybe some D2C founders can help me out here.

4. What tools did you use for your first MVP launch?

Thanks

Thinking of build my own startup. Have questions?

Product Manager

Welcome to Office Gossip's Private Community

Absolutely sad to see the state of the startups, most of them.
I am a founder myself, and this is a post with equal disappointment with myself as much as it is for anyone else who relates.
Look at all these companies that have raised shit tons of capital, and now make a fraction of money that has been invested in them.
The raised money is spent on outsized, non business sense making acquisition costs, only to keep repeating it till the tap runs dry.
Then when all stakeholders get bored, the service quality plummets, the employees are fired and whole sectors are admonished as being bad.

But, my question is, which sector where large sums of money was invested in early days have come out with flying colours. Fucking nothing !
Edtech, proptech, agritech, ecommerce etc. etc. etc. kuch bhi nahi. 

Is there any sector where a startup which has raised in the 100s of millions in the first 5 years have actually built a sustainable business at any scale ?
Then scaling down, isse acha, scale slowly.
The worst part of this whole drama, is pushing the innovation wheel backward and destroying customer sentiment.

Isse acha, raise less money inititally, build slowly, and only scale when the market is ready. Artifical growth makes no sense, unless you have a treasure chest that shall never run out.
Even in that case, spend the money on assets and not on random acquisition costs, direct or indirect.

As founders, let's do better, nahi ?

Rant or is it ?

Founder

I am told that to start a company I need to stop thinking like an engineer but I feel that I need to perfect the features and do research on what will work. 
What am I doing wrong?

Founders here, did you code/ build you own product while you was starting?

Product Head

This might be a lame post altogether but here I go.
I have had an idea of a product / platform since about an year it targets primarily a category of small scale localised businesses(no not grocery stores but similar nontech domain where the tech is the enabler), what I have achieved (my background is 2year exp backend engineer) in the last year is a minimum viable backend of the same and a market fit survey with about 10 local businesses (who were interested)
Now coming to block am facing right now is with business/legal formalities to actually make it official, don’t really know where to start looking for even guidance on “how to start” with those legal “stuff”.
Another thing thats equally annoying is whoever I want to make this idea happen with always seems to interested and invested at start few days and eventually they fade out with no actual output of excuse of being busy, am not really what am doing wrong here.
In my mind why I need a cofounder is to handle the frontend(this is what feel I need cofounder for).
Any advise from anyone who are willing share some of their thoughts?

Facing a mental block starting a startup

Backend Engineer

Welcome to News Discussion's Private Community

Hi folks,
I wanted to know your opiion, I’m a graphic designer at a mid stage startup where i have been working for past 1.5 yrs and now i have got job offer to be in founding team for branding and marketing (which i have good experience in both) of a early stage startup which is already funded, product is good and so are founders. Should i do it?

Mid stage startup or early stage startup

Marketing Associate

I have 2 job offers in hand and now am a bit confused. Need your advice on decision-making,

1st offer - Jaipur location - investing and trading company, offering me an Equity Research Analyst role with a profit-sharing in the new business division which they are developing.

2nd offer - Bangalore-based startup, recently raised $550k, has 18 months of runway, the current scale is low.. they are offering me mixed roles - 50% of the time will go into Social Media and Content, 30% in Business and 20% in Finance. ESOPs will be based on 6-8 months of performance.

Now I have 2 career paths in mind:

1) I want to do CFA and get into the core finance side... it might also lead me to the VC, PE, or IB side.

2) Startup - I have done startup in the past but failed. I want to do startup again but currently want to join a good startup where I can learn from experienced people.

I don't know how I should go about deciding b/w these 2 career paths.

If you were in my shoes, how would you make a decision?

Have 2 job offers - Confused to choose one

Equity Research

So, I am an analytics guy with almost 5.5 YoE under my belt. My latest transition was to Phonepe that I made this year (feeling shitty here already, given the kind of work creating almost no impact)
I saw a post on LinkedIn where the CEO of this startup recently raised some pre-seed funding (~1.5mn). Since I was following them for almost 6-7 months before this, I reached out to the founder on LinkedIn. 
We first had a virtual call where we got to know each other and after that discussion, he called me over to his place where we further talked about the idea, the scope and the future while also discussing what I could bring to the table. Post that, we met again, and this time with the other co-founder who deep-dived a slight bit into the tech stack that I had worked on.
It seems that all is going well, but the founder, in the first face to face meeting told me that for the time being (for almost the next 3-4 months), he'll be able to pay me a monthly amount which is less than half of my current in hand pay, post which it'll be reviewed and adjusted accordingly. How do I negotiate this now? Also, since the team size is super small (only 5 full time folks and one customer support part timer), how do I negotiate on what equity I take (looking for a benchmark number here)?

Joining an early stage startup - Need guidance

Analyst

Welcome to Software Engineers's Private Community

I recently got an offer for a founding engineer role at a very early stage startup. The product is not out yet and the role is meant to be building the initial product to be sold to customers who have showed interest in it. The startup is in the payment ops space.

The comp offered is 15lpa and equity of 10lac or 0.5% whichever is higher. I have 3.5yrs of experience and left my job in October last year. I had an exponential growth in my package while moving companies and made 45lpa + ESOPS in my last job, starting with 4.5lpa as a fresher.

I know that I might not be able to get the same comp now given the scenarios in the software and tech industry. 

I wanted to know how to best analyse a comp package for a founding engineer role, particularly at this point in time?

Need help deciding comp for founding engineer role

Hey folks,
2023 graduate here; been working in a startup for around 1.5 years now (including 6 months full time internship) 

At the moment, I am currently looking for something challenging to solve and be a part of small early stage startup. 
Is someone here aware of any reputed early stage startup (team with enthusiastic folks and pays well) hiring for SDE full time roles.

Thanks!

Looking out for an early stage startup to join!

I'm working on a fintech B2C idea and need some advice. It's quite a complex idea, in a regulated industry (of course). I'm fairly good at developing apps (self taught web and mobile app dev) and currently working alone on this. I'm planning to use Flutter and GO to create the MVP. I'm experienced in Flutter but have no idea about GO. Currently working remotely (not enough savings to work on the idea full time). Need some suggestions on:

1. Should I learn GO or use ChatGPT or GitHub Copilot?

2. Since it's a fintech product (a highly regulated industry), how scrappy can I be regarding building and launching the MVP asap?

3. I've not worked in fintech, although I was a co-founder before (failed startup). Should I rather focus on building and launching the product by doing it all myself or take some time into looking for a co-founder?

4. I know that this is something that just cannot be bootstrapped (navigating in the grey areas of regulations, lobbying etc). Should I just put my head down and hustle it out till product launch or do I start looking to raise capital? Any angels or VCs that will actually fund an idea (especially in these times)?

Just looking to make better decisions by getting some opinions/suggestions/advice!

Questions and thread discussions are most welcome! 

Grapevine, do your thing 😤

Need Suggestions/Advice

Generalist

As a non technical founder, i can go as far as prototyping an app on figma, or make detailed wireframes of what I want the app to be. Right now, after months of brainstorming and research, I would say I have a pretty good idea of what i want the app to be and what the functions of the app are. But I'm new to the startup world, and I'm at a stage where I'm supposed to choose one of the three options with their own pros and cons:
1. Find a technical cofounder for full stack development.
         It's very difficult to find someone with the same mindset and vision as me, but if I do, then this can be the best solution out of the three.

2. Learn either front end or back end or both.
         It's very time consuming especially when I'm in my final year of my bachelor's and doesn't really make sense (as advised by another founder of a pretty big startup)

3. Outsourcing dev.
        Lack of funding, IP issues, and communication gaps. 

It would be great if someone who's already in the startup world to guide me with this or give me advise on what next step for me would be the most beneficial.

How advisable is it to outsource full stack development if you're a solo founder?

1. I am having a strong problem statement, which is thoroughly validated, along with a business plan, but I am not working or starting it as I lack confidence because I don't have a team in place.

( I am an IIM graduate and currently a product manager - giving these details just to get a sense of my background, which might help in the type of suggestions from your side).


2. How can I find a co-founder/partner/core team member? Please advise me on where to look for co-founders or people that share a similar mindset. 
Show quoted text



Please help me to navigate through this situation. Thanks in Advance 🙏

Need Advice - How to begin working on a Idea/Startup ?

I’ve applied and interviewed for jobs before but this is the first time I have an interview for a start up, that too with the cofounder. Apart from the role technicalities, what are some questions I should ask the Cofounder?

Interview with Cofounder of a startup

I am a '21 graduate from a Tier 1 college (old IIT) and have had short stints as product manager at a couple of startups. About a year back, I decided to startup but after a few months, realized that startup idea wasn't worth pursuing. 

Researched around a few startup ideas and finally landed upon a good one in D2C space. But the problem is financing. I don't have much saving and friends / family network wouldn't be able to finance this. I really want to pursue this idea but finance is becoming a hindrance. 

So started looking for job opportunities about 3 months back. I have been exploring work opportunities in product / founder office / EIR roles or other generalist role. 

Job hunt process has been frustrating to say the least. Getting very few calls. In most cases, people are ghosting after couple of rounds of interview or assignment. In some cases, after getting through 2-3 rounds, I got to know that opening has been closed temporarily. Most HRs don't even have the decency to give feedback. 

I don't intend to work in job for long anyway. As soon as I have the job, I plan to start working on my business idea and quit as soon as I have enough financial leeway. 

How should I go about job hunt process? I have been trying to connect with folks on LinkedIn in whose company job openings are there. Apart from this, I have been connecting with founders from recently funded startups. Naukri / Instahyre and IIM Jobs are other portals I have been looking on. Anything I should do differently here? 

Looking forward to hearing your suggestions / experience.

How bad is the job market?

Just a advice: 
  
 Never do the assignment for any company.This company will ghost you every time after the assignment or will offer lower pay / lower position. 
  
 Companies just try to get ideas via the assignment

Welcome to Product Managers's Private Community

want to build my startup with small team of 4,5 peoples
, I am a fullstack developer 1Yoe suggestions/Guidelines please .

Want to build my startup vs job.

Software Developer

I understand if someone is asking this question, the person isn't ready. But would like to know from founders, what was your motivation ? What pushed you over from a 9-5?
Is it just taking a bet on yourself and working towards solving the problem?

When should one startup ?

I've 3 yoe, currently working in a very small startup as full-stack dev. Company's revenue is declining from Q4 last year.

Every month layoffs are happening in each team. Last week, a dev was laid off from my team.

No hike till now, working here from last 1.5 years. Although, got performance bonus twice.

I want to work on a few ideas, tried to work on weekends but it led to burn out and started affecting my health, suffered from mental fatigue.

Please suggest.

Work on own startup vs switch to another startup

Would you guys consider joining a startup with only 3-4 people in the office? I’m a recent graduate and got an opportunity to work with a team of 4 

however i’m not sure if i should join because i’ve always wanted to work at bigger organisations and get that corporate feeling and i im also an introvert and hate being “seen/perceived” (iykwim) and that’s the case with smaller teams 

but again looking at the job market rn im scared id end up employed 

what to do?

What do you look for when you join founders and build a product?

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