I think there's nothing better when your young (or old for that matter!) to muck in with a startup. Although it isn't Silicon Valley, I interned with two businesses this summer a loved it.
With one, we were brainstorming ideas for the product and mapping out the development schedule. You guys know what it's like - your sitting in a noisy cafe with a pen, a piece of paper, all grinning at each other as you see ideas coming together. It's even more awesome now as the products get developed (we've got one developer. He's a real trooper!). You learn how to work with other people. You learn to expand on other people's ideas. You learn to ship.
The other business I worked with is a bit more established, (an SEO consultancy) where I was working on my own within the team to produce a one-off guide to creating linkbait. It took two weeks of research, interviewing the team on video, editing video, working with the design team and writing it all up... then about a weeks editing which included learning bits of CSS mighty-fast to fix formatting errors! Hehe...
We launched this afternoon - Seth Godin picked it up! WOW! That and a few hundred other tweets and some really quite humbling comments from the rest of the SEO community.
Why in the world that we live in would you not try and connect with people and do awesome, challenging, fun stuff like this. And why would you work in a corporation?!? You'd never get anything like that kind of flexibility you get with SME's and startups.
I'd love to do what this guy did in the valley someday. Better still, I hope to get more people interning in the valley and across the world with startups. Maybe there's some money in that?
I am one of the owners of one of the companies that Ed interned at. He is amazing - proving that opportunity is there if you just go and grab it. Here's what he produced: http://www.distilled.net/linkbait-guide/
I know it was probably sarcasm, but I'd assume most people won't be making a list of people to share wealth with when they strike it big. If you want something in return from those founders you should make it clear what you'd like (job referrals, industry connection, etc) now before your opportunity diminishes. Don't keep your card too long.
One more proof that startups are for people that are into the experience. Not the money, not the credit, just the fun of doing it. If you're about calculating your percentage, figuring out if your're getting paid the largest sum of money around or have the best title - talk to the recruiters of big cos.
Totally agree with you. While you need to fairly sure you are on a path that is capable of providing you with a decent return at some point, the fact remains that you have to absolutely love the journey, otherwise there are a lot easier ways to earn a living... I'm involved in my third startup experience (one decent-ish consulting biz (not really a startup but a new biz nonetheless), one ecommerce biz that went fairly big (in UK terms) and then blew up, and now a social commerce play), and I still get the same feeling of being a kid in a candy shop that is just not present when you are doing (much better paid) work for other people.
This is a pretty good post, but I think a lot of these things can be said of any start up, not just of a startup going through YC. Interesting read, though. Can't wait to try myself.
With one, we were brainstorming ideas for the product and mapping out the development schedule. You guys know what it's like - your sitting in a noisy cafe with a pen, a piece of paper, all grinning at each other as you see ideas coming together. It's even more awesome now as the products get developed (we've got one developer. He's a real trooper!). You learn how to work with other people. You learn to expand on other people's ideas. You learn to ship.
The other business I worked with is a bit more established, (an SEO consultancy) where I was working on my own within the team to produce a one-off guide to creating linkbait. It took two weeks of research, interviewing the team on video, editing video, working with the design team and writing it all up... then about a weeks editing which included learning bits of CSS mighty-fast to fix formatting errors! Hehe...
We launched this afternoon - Seth Godin picked it up! WOW! That and a few hundred other tweets and some really quite humbling comments from the rest of the SEO community.
Why in the world that we live in would you not try and connect with people and do awesome, challenging, fun stuff like this. And why would you work in a corporation?!? You'd never get anything like that kind of flexibility you get with SME's and startups.
I'd love to do what this guy did in the valley someday. Better still, I hope to get more people interning in the valley and across the world with startups. Maybe there's some money in that?