You need at least someone on the engineering team that's experienced and has seen all the ways that large systems can go terribly, horribly wrong. Ideally that'll be one of the founders, because you'll have a tough time convincing someone experienced to join otherwise. But occasionally someone loves the product idea enough to commit.
Otherwise, a team of inexperienced college students is very likely to build a large system that goes terribly, horribly wrong. They know enough to write code, but not enough to avoid writing code, and certainly not enough to know when to trade off the quick hack for the elegant system.
I know because I was once that undergrad making a mess of things. I'm lucky; I've been able to work with some people who are very, very accomplished. But the time I spent floundering around on my own in college could probably have been easily avoided had I been working with someone who's been there and done that.
I agree. I'll go even further: hire only experienced people at the beginning, so that they can mentor college kids when you hire them (fresh new blood is always a nice addition).
If you can't convince experienced people to come on board, something is wrong with your project.
The problem is that experienced people cost a lot of money, and since they are typically older with things like a family to support, mortgage to pay, etc, are going to be more risk averse.
Especially in the early stages, all projects are more or less a crapshoot, so in order to tempt someone away from that 200k a year job, you're going to need to hand over a lot of equity, raise a lot of money, or overpower them with sheer force of charisma.
If you want to hire five of these people, you better be heavily bankrolled, or rolling natural 20s.
Well, first of all don't go to people thinking why they might turn you down.
People don't care about money, as long as you can pay them enough to pay the rent / mortgage and the little extras in life. If you don't have that kind of money, you're doomed anyway.
Offer them a dream job. If they believe in the project, they know money will come later.
On a really tight budget? Recruit less. 2 seniors instead of 5 juniors.
People don't care about money, as long as you can pay them enough to pay the rent / mortgage and the little extras in life.
With that pitch your best bet is empty-nesters and retired folks itching to get back in the game.
Otherwise, it isn't just the mortgage. It's the mortgage, the car payment, car insurance, a month-long overseas vacations you've planned out a year in advance, kids' dental, your in-laws taking your kids on a skiing vacation (but you're paying), the kids going to tennis/band/nerd camp, time to replace the refrigerator, the couch has a funny smell you can't get rid of.... (I'm paying special attention to my older coworkers so I know why I'm saving my money.)
The college kid is probably sleeping on a couch that an experienced engineer had to throw out because prosperous forty-year-old people aren't allowed to have furniture that smells funny. The college kid doesn't care if the roof leaks, because that's the landlord's problem. (Maybe's he's paying a few hundred a month for a bedroom and his name isn't even on the lease.) The refrigerator needs to be replaced? Lemme check. Nope, the beer's still cold.
Retired people, on the other hand, live like college students except with better hygiene, different recreational choices, and more regular sleep schedules.
whenever someone tells me that money shouldn't matter, I hear "I'm trying to take advantage of you"
If you want me to work for you for equity, you better be bringing something valuable to the table; and you know what? that idea isn't valuable. Not until you implement it.
This is the other reason why startups like young people; a young Engineer is easier to impress into thinking your 'idea' is so awesome that you keep 90% of the equity while he does all the work. (and yeah, I've seen that exact scheme come to pass.)
Sure, business people often contribute more than an idea. A /good/ business person is quite valuable. a bad business person is worse than nothing, though, and it's extremely difficult for a nerd to tell the difference.
For building something for demo purposes, you can hire anybody to build it. But when it's time to build the app for real, the app that your target users will use, an experienced developer is important.
If not what your code will be hard to maintain and it may be difficult to add new features and/or scale.
If you have a weak foundation, if you put stuff on it, it will collapse at some point.
> Especially in the early stages, all projects are more or less a crapshoot, so in order to tempt someone away from that 200k a year job, you're going to need to hand over a lot of equity, raise a lot of money, or overpower them with sheer force of charisma.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Frankly, I look for a biz guy who has an extreme amount of charisma because that can really help a biz.
"inexperienced college students is very likely to build a large system that goes terribly, horribly wrong"
Maybe you should hire them when it is their third system? First one goes horribly wrong because of lack of engineering, second goes horribly wrong because of over-engineering (the well known second-system syndrome) and by the third they should be ready to go.
By the third successful system, they aren't inexperienced anymore (and will cost you accordingly), and if it's the third failed system, they wouldn't necessarily have learned anything. It's possible to flounder around for a long time given lack of direction.
This is good advice. I once worked under a kid just out of college -- he had connections to the big bosses -- and while he was smart and good for the amount of experience he'd had, the system got really, really messed up under his naive direction. I quit out of frustration.
It's important to respect experience and ascribe proper placement to it in your organization. You want someone seasoned calling the shots, not a relative "newbie". People from college have a lot of theory and homework pumped into their heads, and that's fine for what it is, but your systems are much better directed with the pragmatism and practicality incident of significant real-world experience.
Well, it depends. The college kid we hired had been coding since age 13, had passed up Harvard for a free ride at a lesser name regional school, and had interned for IBM & Lockheed Martin before. Dude serious had his shit together.
That said, my co-founder is 33 and had previous startup experience.
I like the juxtaposition of "You need a Co-Founder, not an Engineering Bitch" and "Recruit college kids. They're young, hungry and don't need of a living wage."
Heh, but a few items later is "Treat everyone you hire like a co-founder." So overall he's saying "You don't need any [fill in the blank] Bitch." (And it's implied that the Engineering Non-Bitch is experienced.)
To echo others, this is an exceptionally good version of the standard "I've been there" startup advice.
The point is that college kids have a lower built-in cost structure to their lives, making them ideal workers in a poorly capitalized startup. But regardless of who you hire, treat people well. It's not about money, it's about being honest and respectful and acting with integrity. Good people may work for shit wages, but they won't work for shit people who pay them shit wages.
Life is just too short. Create a company culture that has some moral character.
It's a disservice to the article to retitle the post from the author's original. This is the best advice: "Tenacity is impressive."
Just keep at it and keep doing stuff and eventually, you'll be on your own with money coming in and that's what matters. Creating work is hard. Doing work is easy. Your job as an entrepreneur is to create enough work that you can pay yourself and others.
If you've never started a company and you're earning $60k a year, it's not hard to forget that someone is taking $60k out of their pocket and giving it to you which means someone else is too and as an individual on your own, it's hard to convince people to give you $60k a year for stuff you do.
YC sounds alot like the c-founder type you describe. it doesn't look that way with all the hype but think about it... ( like a good engineer) would google founders have fallen for YC's offer?
Yeah, except YC takes ~5% while the annoying business c-founder type take ~80%. And I'd argue YC even provides considerably more value than most 'business' co-founders.
it's not about the % YC or any venture capital. it's about your judgment of what's added to your startups value. of all the startups applying, being select etc a few become hits. the question is how much of it was do to the founders and the work they put in, how much with the idea and how much with SPECIFIC things that YC brings in. Not the hype. Also can it be brought in otherwise and would it have become a sucess without YC. I would ask the same thing about veture capital. sure it feels good when someone hands you lots of $$$$ and say here work on your idea but I wouldn't take it if it's not going to be usefull or need. if you think about its kind of ironic because YC understands this and so gives only few dollars to start. it realy isn't needed at that stage but then neither is YC.
by the way if I had even 1% of google I'd be so rich :)
From pg: "Financially, a startup is like a pass/fail course. The way to get rich from a startup is to maximize the company's chances of succeeding, not to maximize the amount of stock you retain. So if you can trade stock for something that improves your odds, it's probably a smart move." [1]
If your startup succeeds, you've got more time and money to start another one and either retain more stock or raise the value of the stock you keep next time around.
I think the important part here is to not take on things that will make you /less/ likely to succeed. Giving ownership to the wrong people will kill the company faster than anything else. Hell, even just taking on debit can change a company from one where you can learn from your mistakes to a failure after you make your first big mistake.
(now, YC is probably the right people to give ownership to for some types of companies; I imagine if your revenue model is to sell the company to some silicon valley VC, the increased access to people wanting to buy is probably worth the 5%. It's probably a bad idea, though, for other sorts; It probably would not have helped my company much. (well, at least my company would have become something entirely different from what it is.)
I was a co-founder for a major ISP in the 90's, but got treated like the Engineering-Bitch instead of as an equal, so I left .. within a year, the guy I started the company with was worth millions, and I was still churning through startup after startup .. okay, I escaped with my own integrity intact (avoided having to deal with a later Federal investigation into the investors of the company) but there is a lesson to be learned: If you're a tech guy, always get the ducks in a row when you have to do business with an entrepreneur whose primary purpose is to make themselves rich at the expense of others ..
I can't answer to what the parent post specifically means here by it, but it just means "get everything in order". Pay attention to the details, plan for different possibilities, think through what might happen. That sort of thing.
You need at least someone on the engineering team that's experienced and has seen all the ways that large systems can go terribly, horribly wrong. Ideally that'll be one of the founders, because you'll have a tough time convincing someone experienced to join otherwise. But occasionally someone loves the product idea enough to commit.
Otherwise, a team of inexperienced college students is very likely to build a large system that goes terribly, horribly wrong. They know enough to write code, but not enough to avoid writing code, and certainly not enough to know when to trade off the quick hack for the elegant system.
I know because I was once that undergrad making a mess of things. I'm lucky; I've been able to work with some people who are very, very accomplished. But the time I spent floundering around on my own in college could probably have been easily avoided had I been working with someone who's been there and done that.