3 Tips for Landing a Job at an Awesome Startup

When I left to join a startup I had 7 years of commercial banking experience, which has little value to an early stage company.  In the beginning startups need lots of things, but understanding an income statement and balance sheet is not one of them.  I had to find a way  to make myself valuable to a startup and  find a startup that I thought had a lot of potential.  Here’s how I did it:

1. Develop a new skill. When a company is getting started it needs help building its product and telling people about its product.  I quickly decided I wasn’t going to be a software developer or designer so I turned my attention to online marketing.  The thing that jumped out to me was Search Engine Marketing (SEM).  It was primarily a data driven skill and I was used to working with data and numbers from my days at the bank.  In January 2007 I started  reading anything I could find on SEM.  Google Adwords also has some awesome tutorials that I used.  By June I felt I knew enough to help somebody get their paid search campaign set up.  I knew that if I were to join a startup though I needed to get some real experience.  So I went on craigslist and found people who needed help with SEM.  I did this for a couple years before I felt like I knew enough to be really valuable to a startup.  Then it was time to go out and find a startup.
2. Leverage the startup accelerators. In the past 5 years startup accelerators (Y Combinator, TechStars, Excelerate Labs, etc) have popped up in most of the major cities in the United States.  Even cities like Cincinnati, in my home state of Ohio, have accelerators.  These accelerators are great for a lot reasons, but the most important thing for job seekers is that they select the best management teams and ideas.  The people who run these accelerators go through hundreds if not thousands of applications before selecting the winners.  As a person looking for a high potential startup this is of great value.   When an accelerator announces  its new class you have a great list of potential employers.  You should go through the list and find the ideas and people that you like the best.   Then you need to reach out to them and offer to help.
3. Do Something Awesome for Free. Once you have selected a couple companies that you like start learning about their business.  Find a way that you can help them.  When I first contacted Sean at FeeFighters I had some ideas on how I could help the company.   Sean said he liked my ideas so I just started doing them.  I didn’t expect to be paid.  It was only a couple hours of work per week so it wasn’t a big deal.  I liked doing this for a couple reasons 1) it gave me a chance to really understand the product  they were selling and 2) it gave me a chance to know the founders of the company.   The founders liked it because  I was working for free and  in general founders like people who get stuff done.  It was a win-win.

I didn’t start out with these 3 steps in mind when I thought about joining a startup, but its what I ended up doing.  It took me four years to switch careers and find a startup that I am really excited about. I moved slowly because I didn’t know what I was doing (and most of the accelerators didn’t exist yet).  However, if I were at the bank today and I decided I want to join a startup, I could move a lot faster by just following these 3 steps.

Photo Credit: Keith Ramsey