HN Explorer

Poll: Do you work at a startup?

27 points by ShaneCurran ↗ HN
For the purposes of the poll, a startup can be defined as “a company working to solve a problem where the solution is not obvious and success is not guaranteed” and revenue does not exceed $10m per year.

If not, feel free to comment where or in what sector you work.

[I'd love to chat with you either way -- feel free to hit me up at shane at velodro.me]

46 comments

[ 6.0 ms ] story [ 112 ms ] thread
andrec
An interesting secondary poll is: Where does a startup stop being a startup in terms of revenue.
knappe
I don't see revenue taking part in the discussion other than showing you have a true business model. Having a stable, profitable business model means you're a small business and not a startup.

I also tend to start calling a company with 30+ employees a small business rather than a startup. You can't support that many employees without being a stable profitable company (ideally I suppose).

verdi327
err, any company with decent funding can easily support over 30 ppl
namenotrequired
Funding doesn't need to be able to support 30 people in order to be decent. What's decent depends on what the company needs.
justinzollars
I once worked for a startup, that startup was acquired by Adobe now I work there.
notacoward
No, but that's kind of misleading because I've worked for ten startups in the past.
darkstar999
How is that misleading? It says "Do you work at at startup", not "did you"
notacoward
It's misleading because if anyone associates certain properties or beliefs to "startup people" vs. "big company" then they'd almost certainly draw the wrong conclusions about me from that answer. In other words, they would be misled. Likewise, any statistical correlation with other properties or beliefs would be skewed by people like me who were habitually one group but just happened to be in the other at the precise moment of asking. When gathering any sample, it can be useful to know about confounding factors or exceptions.
dopamean
The poll isn't about you. A poll generally is about where a group of people stand at a given moment in time. There is nothing misleading about asking if someone currently works at a startup.
notacoward
Oh, so it was asked without any intention whatsoever of drawing any conclusions that might be affected by the number of anomalies in that small sample? Do you know what the right thing is to do with extra information that you don't think affects the validity of a sample? Ignore it. There's no need to get on people's case for volunteering extra information just in case it would matter to someone interpreting it. The poll isn't about you either.
lotp
Not by your definition.
sukuriant
"and revenue does not exceed $10m per year."

... would that mean Mojang isn't a startup?

pionar
I would definitely say that Mojang is no longer a startup. It's 5 years old and has a healthy revenue stream and a proven business model.
pionar
I work in Indianapolis at a software company in the higher ed. and municipal operations management sectors.
bherms
Which company? From Indy originally and worked for Matchbook Creative and then iGoDigital before making the jump to SF. Love working at the Speakeasy when I'm in town.
jahkobi
Yes. househappy.org located in Portland, OR.
burntroots
Unemployed/Self employed. Freelance.
bherms
Post acquisition startup
ShaneCurran
Are you an employee of the purchaser or are you still working for the startup?
bherms
Still working for the startup
guiporto
I'm a founder of a startup in Brazil. We help doctors manage their clinics.
ShaneCurran
Nice! I'd love to chat. Feel free to email the address in the question or my profile.
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neona
Retail, going to start school soon instead.
mkal_tsr
Yes, I founded my own (solo tech founder)
l0c0b0x
Education,

I come here to REALLY know what is going on in the tech industry. Usually find out about things I care about hours before 'others' around me do.

yamalight
Failed last 3 attempts. Slowly starting 4th one. This time as a research project spin-off.
Ryel
Front-end looking for work right now and trying to make this decision.

I like the energy of startups but finding the right group of people is hard.

bjelkeman-again
Open source government transparency and governance data services.

I have been told by several of our customers that we aren't a startup anymore. But we are according to the criteria listed. Revenue $4.7m last year.

whitef0x
I contract to a startup as a developer, but I'm not sure if that makes me 'in a startup' or not, so I put other.
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biot
For most startups I've seen, the only not obvious solution is "does anybody need this, and how can we convince them that they do?". Unless the startup is heavy on experimental R&D, there seem to be very few where the technical solutions aren't obvious.
shortsightedsid
Yes, we are a 2 man startup in customer success stories and how one can use them to get more leads/conversion from content marketing - http://rivet.ly. Right now we are pre-launch and busy coding!
acdanger
No. Working at a small web dev firm.