Following our recent recruiting effort to find Christina and Gary I have been spending a fair bit of time meeting with people we encountered in the process who wanted career advice. Here are some of the points I have found myself talking about repeatedly.
First: many people think they want to be an entrepreneur but few actually are. The best way to tell is to look at the things you have already done. If you have never taken the initiative to create something from scratch (and even if that something is just a new club at school) you are probably not well suited to being an entrpreneur.
Second: finding a job at a great startup requires a lot of initiative. The best startup jobs are never advertised so you need to be highly proactive.
Third: if you join a startup but not as a co-founder then it is best to join one that already either has clear traction and/or is venture backed. The risk-reward ratio is worst for non-founders in pre-traction/pre-funding situations.
Fourth: Consulting and Investment Banking are generally not good preparations for being either an entrepreneur or joining a startup. Most large companies are only marginally better. If you want to be an entrepreneur or work at a startup, get out of that consulting, banking or big company job as fast as you can!
Fifth: You can’t expect the first startup you join to be a huge success and have you be set for life! Expect to work at a string of startups instead. Therefore you have to value the benefits of being at a startup, such as being able to get things done without a bureaucracy.
Sixth: Being a generalist is tough because even startups look for some degree of specialization as soon as they get to be more than a handful of people.
Seventh: Networking and general purpose informational meetings are great, but you should always have an agenda and concrete questions. Otherwise the meeting winds up not being a good use of anybody’s time.
Nothing terribly new here at all but find myself surprised how many people appear confused on what I consider basic pointers.
