Should you be working at a startup?

Why do people go to work at startups? is it the excitement of being a part of something new or is it the chance of being compensated unproportionally if the company blows up? Sam Altman of Ycombinator did a nice a write-up about employee equity compensation – and while I don’t necessarily agree with everything (context is important), he makes some good points about how to think about employee equity.

This sparked a debate on HackerNews on whether getting minor equity is worth working at a startup for. The consensus seems to be that working at startups is risky and unprofitable, on both points I completely agree. Some choice quotes:

Even well-funded startups give me pause. I’m not interested in putting in founder-like work for entry-level employee-like compensation plus a lottery ticket.

Getting sweet $170k salary with some bonus, massage, free food and shuttle is good enough for me.

“Startup-bucks are even worse than a lottery ticket….” –
Also because if they are worth something, it’s a motivation for the company to fire you before you can cash out.

All of those sentiments make perfect sense. However, if you’re looking to work in startups to get paid, you’re doing it wrong.

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Open salaries considered useful?

Buffer, the social sharing platform, released a blog post today detailing their employees’ pay scale and specific salaries. The approach of open salaries is very interesting to me, but I’m wondering about the public aspects of releasing it online.

Transparent vs. Public

In the article, Joel (Buffer’s CEO) refers to transparency as one of their core company values (which they’d previously released online as well). Transparency as a company value sounds noble, however reading their definition in the above link, I am feeling the real meaning is honesty instead.

I am of the opinion that not everything that goes on in the company needs to be shared as a default. I’m not talking about hiding or misleading information, rather not proactively sharing it. Mark Suster wrote a fantastic post on the topic of “How open should a startup CEO be with employees“, and it covers some instances where complete transparency might be a detriment.

Please remember that we’re all wired different to accept uncertainty, risk & stress. And remember the reason that most people aren’t startup CEOs is that deep down while they might want your job theoretically most of them don’t actually want the kind of life and pressures that come with your job.
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Getting Shit Done

Another startup culture bash was making the rounds, this time about a common term in the startup world – “getting shit done”, and what a terrible mentality it is to have. Disclaimer – I know the author personally, as him and I were at the same 500startups batch this summer, and I also consider him a good friend. But I think he’s completely off on this one.

What does “getting shit done” mean?

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Travelogue: Japan

Last week, my co-founder, Adam, and I, traveled to Japan. The official reason was being invited to the b-dash camp conference in Osaka by our Japanese investor, Tak Miyata of Scrum Ventures, and we piggy-backed on the opportunity to visit a country we both wanted to go to for a long time.

My history with Japan

I’ve been a fan of Japanese culture and entertainment for quite some time now. Japanese society has a lot of rules and preconceived notions, but once they break through that, they have no limit on their imagination.
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Nobody cares what “Growth Hacking” means to marketers

Everybody and their grandma is now a “Growth Hacker”, a term originally coined to describe marketers who use unconventional approaches and measure their effectiveness with analytics instead of gut feelings. In fact, apparently everyone who uses multiple marketing channels is now a “growth hacker”.

As someone who is on the other side of the table, looking to hire someone to drive growth to his business, I have a newsflash for you – nobody cares about the exact classification and semantics of your title.

What Growth Hacking Means To Startups

Startups are designed for growth. Not every company needs to grow fast – most businesses don’t. Startups use technology to achieve scale rapidly – that is the most common definition of what a startup is. Startups usually try to build websites that not only look great, but also help them increase sales. Check out https://sceptermarketing.com/ for digital marketing specialists who can develop a functional and efficient site for your business.

As such, traditional marketing – while very important and required, is typically not enough. That means that in order for a startup to achieve its goals, a different distribution approach is often required. Enter, Growth Hacking.

As such, growth hacking is not

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