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Ask HN: Is it bad if I only have experience working in my startup?

52 points by hazz99 ↗ HN
Hello!

I'm in the early stages of running a small startup/business and expect to reach $10-20k ARR in the next few months. Once we've acquired a customer, the service is automatic and doesn't require manual input.

Each customer represents $2-6K ARR, but we don't know their lifetime value. With a bit of effort and marketing I can imagine reaching $200k ARR in the next few years. Split with my cofounder, this could become a very nice lifestyle business, or we could go all-in and do the whole startup thing.

But what if it fails? I graduate next year. I'll have a CS degree, but my only experience will be building this. My GPA isn't amazing because I've spent most of my time getting to this point – it hasn't been easy.

Any advice?

51 comments

[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 121 ms ] thread
tlack
I think a savvy manager would look at your soup-to-nuts experience as a good thing, perhaps in a product lead or management role, if the tech resume isn't up to snuff.

Sounds like you've built something amazing - just keep going!

rintintone
If you end up having to apply for a normal job this just means you're positioned for "product manager" or something like that, rather than software developer. Most places, that's better, especially so far as long-term career goes. In terms both of pay and social standing. Congrats.
achillean
It depends on the company that you'll be applying at. Before my own company was making enough to cover my bills I had to go back to a regular job and most of my experience at that time was either at my own startup or at others. I had some companies only offer me junior salaries because they didn't consider my experience at startups - it didn't count in their books. However, there were plenty of other companies that valued my background and that's where I found a home until I could go full-time with my own company (I decided to bootstrap). The company I joined wasn't a startup. Not all companies will value your background but the ones that do will pay you well. You'll need to interview around and don't be frustrated if the first place you apply to dismisses your startup background.
Hydraulix989
It sounds like you can stay lean and grow your business. Don’t even raise any VC.
barbarbar
What you have going sounds awesome. Continue. It seems better to work for yourself - instead of somebody else.
sheeshkebab
I had a small side software business (really no effort) while making real money at the day job. That went on for a few years before it finally took over day job. What I guess I’m saying is there is a different way to approach this, other than taking what basically is a min wage job, for a long time.
simplydt
Whatever you don’t learn from being in a “real” job you can make up by reading good books, good articles, listening to good podcasts and working with a mentor. Keep learning. Keep asking questions.
yodon
The biggest challenge you will face is what I think of during interviews as "founder damage." You're used to leading teams, not being on them. You're used to deciding what to do, not doing what is decided. A good engineering lead builds and leads teams and makes plenty of decisions, but they do it in a context of "others around me are people I need to listen to" not "I'm only listening to this person because I have to because I had to get a normal job." The best thing you can do to stave off founder damage (which is a lot like hubris, btw) is to make sure you have a co-founder and/or other team members about whom you would say without hesitation "they are so much better at X and Y than I am that I look like a child next to them." Making sure you have people like that around you is how you make sure you keep learning and keep being able to fit into society. If you happen to have read that and think "there isn't anyone I know like that" then the need for those people has already reached critical importance and finding those qualities in people you know is your most important task.
benjaminwootton
Agreed. I haven't had a great deal of luck with hiring people from startup backgrounds. They often started butting heads with the team, losing interest early and clearly moonlighting on their next project. Often people like this would keep their business projects on social media but work for us under the radar. It felt like we were the distant 2nd choice as the employer.

I've hired lots of people like this who tended to leave or be managed out after 3-6 months.

xwdv
Nothing wrong with it. A job is an agreement to do some work for a specified rate, no more no less.
bjornsing
I guess the problem is hiring managers don’t necessarily see it that way 100%, or at least that there are other agreements to consider. E.g. if I hire someone I know they have a legal right to quit after one month, but I still have a fiduciary duty to try to avoid hiring lots of people who will.
xwdv
Maybe they should. Then they could optimize for what they really want.
staysaasy
Really well put. Power changes your mindset in unpredictable ways. You can also find this phenomenon in people who've been CEOs who called all of their own shots for a long time. They can't go back to a more "normal" job.

When I'm hiring I absolutely love to see founder experience as it teaches so many valuable lessons and is usually a sign of an independent, self-starter personality. I do try to watch out for this "founder damage" (great term!) – some founders get to the point where they simply can't work for someone else ever again. Once I'm over that hurdle I consider it a major positive sign.

Congrats to the OP on their success so far as well!

toomuchtodo
As a hiring manager, what signs do you look for to confirm someone with leadership experience doesn’t have “founder damage”?
staysaasy
First, I always ask ex-founder candidates to tell me about the startup(s) that they ran. This is a chance for them to really shine. At the same time, I look for warning signs that they won't work well with others (random example: look for an extreme ratio between when they say "I" vs. "We"), or signals that being the boss of other people has become an entrenched part of their identity.

Unless I expect that it'll be an extremely sore topic, I will typically also just ask them why they want to work with us. I think that some people are shy about the questions you can ask in all sorts of situations. If you ask people they'll often tell you.

em-bee
the kind of startup also makes a difference, someone from a b2b startup selling services has experience working with clients, and that's not that much different from working under a boss. if their attitude is to serve their clients then they can work with their new boss too.
staysaasy
Yep, there's nothing like getting bullied by one of your top 5 accounts to really deflate an overblown ego haha.

From what I've seen, having investors that the founder is answerable to can also help to mitigate this effect, although investors will sometimes pump you up + stroke your ego which can have the opposite effect.

eximius
I will note that particular phrasing would really turn me off as a hiring manager.

"I have a lot left to learn. I know this because I saw room for improvement at X, Y, Z. I'm looking forward to working with experts/professionals/etc more senior than I am to learn from them, etc."

bjornsing
How so? I would probably have seen ”I know this because I saw room for improvement at X, Y, Z” in this context as a red flag, but the rest I would probably just swallowed as the usual “interview talk”. Do we see this differently?
t0mas88
I think he didn't mean X, Y, Z as other places but as colleagues / co-founders? So a candidate that is able to tell you something like: "I'm a great engineer, but I really learned a lot from working with Bob who is amazing at building teams and Mary who is the best at finance" demonstrates being a better team player than someone that "can do it all" themselves.
yodon
As there appears to be some confusion here, and as the author of the phrase "make sure you have a co-founder and/or other team members about whom you would say without hesitation "they are so much better at X and Y than I am that I look like a child next to them."" I will reiterate that X and Y are things you feel your co-founder and/or team members are much better at than you, for example "my co-founder is much better at hiring people and writing testable code than I am" or "my first hire was much better at schema design and writing performant queries than I am." X and Y are skills or abilities you respect and acknowledge that others you work with are better at than you, and they are important because remaining aware of other's strengths is how you ward off hubris in yourself as a founder.
eximius
This is kind of funny because now I'm the one being misunderstood.

I was referring to 'room for improvement at marketing, time management, etc'. Skills, not locations.

I was mostly reacting against the phrasing describing yourself like a child compared to someone.

PopeDotNinja
As a former founder, I still struggle with being on teams. The "what do you mean you don't care about X" thoughts haunt me daily. I'm used to it now, but being a team player is a learned skill for me.
fxtentacle
I've had bad luck in the other direction. We hired people with presumably lots of experience from working in larger companies, and in my opinion they were behaving like babies.

For example, a software license email to one of them didn't arrive. That person started being passive aggressive as if I had done them wrong. Then later, they used the lack of that license as an excuse for unrelated problems. I would have expected a senior developer to be adept enough at problem solving to just ask why they didn't get that license that I had promised.

But it appears they were mentally still stuck at being a tiny cog in a huge machine.

Peteris
Tell them you're looking to join a company precisely to get mentorship, see how a successful company operates, learn to work in larger product lines, etc. That way you're pre-emptively going around the Founder damage issue.
wingerlang
Sounds like they'll bounce once they learn what they need.
Grimm1
Why stay at a company that's not providing you with anything other than a paycheck?
wingerlang
Why hire someone who’s literally telling you he will leave once he learn X?
Grimm1
Because they're providing you a service and their time for an exchange of money not signing up to your company for life?

That person didn't say they'd leave, they said they want to learn something, you took it as they'd want to leave which says more about you and your interpretation of it than anything else.

wingerlang
No, I have specifically told every interviewer that I wanted to learn X and Y during interviews (and I had no intention to leave).

To be precise it is more in the context of founders and this text from the message above "see how a successful company operates". Basically if you go there and say "hey I am a founder and I need to learn how X works in a successful company"

Anyway I definitely extrapolated this, I doubt anyone would say it this blatantly. Just --if--.

Grimm1
I think that is more of a personal experience. I've worked in startups for over half a decade now and founded two. I've never been turned down on the basis of my founding experience or my desire to learn certain skills.

The company I'm currently at even knows about the work I'm doing outside the company and supported me as I was working through the latest YC application rounds.

You want good people to join your company, it provides brand recognition if they then go on to found or do amazing things even better. You should never assume when hiring someone they'll stay for any length of time, obviously you want to try and create and environment where they want to stay but if you got a year or more out of the arrangement I consider that successful. That's why you need strong documenting and knowledge transfer policies.

The days of staying at companies long term (>3 years for senior people and >1.5ish years for regular folks) really isn't a thing any more at least in tech and startups.

There are no structures in place that make it advantageous to stay and 10s of thousands of dollars on the table as a worker that make it advantageous to shop around.

Plan accordingly as a manager and things will be a lot easier instead of losing talent because your worried they'll want to do other work at some point which is pretty much a given for most people.

ereyes01
Another way to look at it is that you'll be a new CS graduate with some good practical experience under your belt (many CS graduates can't say the same). I guess you would be in a similar category as other peers that do internships, though IMHO if your company does as well as you expect it to, your experience is much stronger. Maybe you don't even need the job after all?

That being said, focus on getting your degree. That piece of paper has a good deal of intrinsic value.

yodi
Hello, I have more than a decade experiences in startups: small, medium and big. If i can wrap it up, think that startup provides the best slingshot to your life journey if you ride the momentum in the right time.

There no time standard whether one, two or six years is the right amount to spend in a single startup. All you need is see your growth as your indicator. If your startup revenue growth is linear, but your own personal growth is sky-rocketing, that's mean you should stay.

The company will have exponential growth if the team inside grow in explosive way.

hartator
Nope, we will hire you. (julien at serpapi.com)
xwdv
Failure is also an experience.
eximius
I don't think you'll have a problem. If you can document your successes (even failures have successes), youll have more work experience and success than your peers. You will stand out, in a good way.
LogicX
You should add your company and contact info to your HN profile.
srameshc
Do not worry about the failure. Keep doing what you are doing if you think it's worth your time and effort. Some may see your flaws and some may see your strength if it doesn't work out just like in any other interview. Keep moving forward.
moneywoes
Can you talk about you acquired your first customer and what the marketing was like?
peferron
I was pretty much in the same boat back in 2013, except with no CS degree but another degree and experience in a different field. What helped me was that at some point we did freelance development for a company to pay rent, and when our startup capsized they hired me and other founders because they knew what we could do. This bootstrapped my software engineer career very nicely. (I ended up staying 6 years because the work and people were great.)

I'm not suggesting you start doing freelance work as well, but if your startup enables you to form relationships and prove your skills to people who could recommend you for interesting roles down the line, that would be super useful.

idoby
"Bad" and "good" are meaningless judgements in this context. You're about to graduate, so you wouldn't be expected to have any real experience, but you do have experience building and running an actual product. Seems to me like you've got the time ahead of you to try running your startup and either succeed or fail, in which case you'd have enough time to restart your career as an employee.

My only advice would be: the founder mindset is very different to the employee mindset, and you'd have to take that into account, and, don't quit your CS degree if you're within 1 year of graduating.

fxtentacle
Don't worry. If you have enough hobby projects and real experience, nobody is going to ask about your CV.

I'm 34 now and I haven't had anyone ask about a CV yet. I usually send a link to some relevant past projects and they'll talk to my past teammates and then that's good enough :)

If you are good at coding and building new things, this is still overwhelmingly a sellers market. So make sure to practice negotiation.

fullito
General speaking? It doesn't matter much. You are a Student. Your career is not something which is just there its something which grows over time.

I had the experience for looking for a new intern and one guy was telling us about his StartUp. Thats fine you know? but also its 99% bullshit.

A small business as a software developer to build, is actually not that hard. The demand is just that high. But that person didn't sound like 'hey i was coding on the side' more like 'yeah we will be the next google'.

Yeah of course you will be and so tell me why you where interviewing with us?

So thats the biggest point: Why do i care about your Startup if you are interviewing for our position? It should show your passion perhaps but thats it. If all other candidates are better technical speaking and are a better team fit, you are out. And with your GPA you probably have risked a good starting position at a bigger company.

Nonetheless about your Startup: What do you really earn vs. what do you expect? Why do you even tell us what you expect?

"I can imagine reaching $200k AAR"?

You are student, you have apparently not reached 10-20k AAR and you have not reached $200k AAR. I don't care about stuff you have not reached. And if its so great in your eyes, why would you try to be hired?

It is super simple: Show me, in the interview process, that you are honest ( don't cheat, i had that...), you are motivated & passion (you like to talk about technology perhaps), you have energy (like you will not be the person sitting in the corner and i have to take care of you all the time) AND you have basic technology understanding and you in.

And don't come in into an interview and tell me, you wanna be part of our company but if your startup makes it big, you are out. Like i don't fucking care about your startup. I care about a team and i might not have the chance to hire another one because of no available head count.

Axsuul
This is a great point. Put that hubris away and stay humble.

Building a small business as a software developer is still extremely hard though which is why they're probably interviewing with you. Demand is high but in an efficient market, it's much more likely to go towards incumbents.

Gibbon1
I'll start with rough quote from a producer when asked how do you hired as producer? Ans: Produce a movie and people will hire you to produce movies. Even if your movie totally flops. Thing is if you started a business, found real customers and delivered a product, even if ultimately the business didn't make it. Congraduations you're a wolf not sheep.

Often companies have beat the business side of things into young engineers and a lot of them refuse learn what you know already. That's generally valuable.

darepublic
> I'll have a CS degree, but my only experience will be building this.

Isn't the alternative only having a CS degree? Are other people working at FAANG jobs as they pursue their education?

Obviously an internet stranger can't tell u what to do but I would feel better if more people told the big tech companies to eff off. They will essentially bribe u to waste your talent working on their status quo cementing schemes

Dowwie
Do you realize that most of your peers have, at best, a few summer internships of work experience? You are already an entrepreneur who has been in the arena!

The decisions you made in life lead you to where you are today. As your situation changes, so will your approach. You already know how to adapt and take action, considering your role as an entrepreneur. With these skills, you're more than ready for whatever you do next.

ykevinator
Or just make your resume reflect your skills and call yourself the lead developer.
irvingprime
When I interview candidates, I specifically look for signs of having been a big player in a tiny team. People from this kind of background often think of themselves as senior developers because they've had a lot of responsibility.

But, their knowledge is entirely confined to the things they've directly experienced. Their knowledge is a mile wide and a molecule deep. They don't know the correct terms for things, haven't thought at all about the trade offs involved in different approaches, and (as others on this thread have pointed out) don't know how to deal with a bigger team of people who all have their own opinions, knowledge and experiences.

I might still hire these people but in junior, not senior roles.

My advice: Be very humble. Don't expect to be given the same responsibility elsewhere. You may feel you've earned it but you haven't proved that yet. Really. Learn to accept criticism and to discuss your approach with other people, even if you think you've got it right.

Also, go back and study those textbooks you've been treating as less important, really hard. Believe it or not, you are at the very beginning of your career. There's still a long way to go.

Good luck!