Startup hiring is flawed

Ask money for your time if the assignment takes more than 2 hours

Do realise that a lot of start ups specially put what we call "Ghost Jobs". They are simply to skim your work product which in this case would be your approach to GTM and Scenario handling which is then collated by internal team members to chart out next paths for the business vertical or as a whole. It's a shady practice that I've found a lot of people to be guilty of and these roles are simply placeholders for them to do this under the guise of hiring you.

There's a reason I have refrained from assessments like these that fall into future biz opportunity or extensive plans, because more likely it's supposed to be for information than for hiring.

As a precursor, always set the expectation that while you're open for assessments, you will only do it for an existing line of business or what they've done so far on how to improve upon it. Anything that has some vintage and doesn't require you to spend hours working on it.

If they disagree, move out of the process. This has saved me from finicky founders and dubious practices so many times, at the right place the founders were appreciative of my foresight and were okay with me sharing my inputs more broadly.

Checkout this post on Grapevine - https://share.gvine.app/ctWknffeGXaZ44z86

Assignments are to get ideas from them and to integrate it with their own. Cheapest cost for startups no money spent got all ideas needed. Tell them "give the job then I will do the work"