I want to join a startup, but I don't know where to start.

I want to join a startup, but I don't know where to start.

This article introduces recent graduates who are interested in joining a startup company. I hope you can find out what jobs and roles startups basically have!

Jason Freedman is the founder of 42Floors, a corporate office rental search service. The original text was posted on the official blog on the 42nd floor.

I just had a nice chat with Alex.

Alex is from Boston. He graduated from an excellent university two or three years ago. After working in several large enterprises, he found that he was not suitable for the job at hand, so he decided to take a step forward and find a new beginning.

He took a computer science course and was familiar with programming and code, but it was not enough for him to become an engineer. Besides, he doesn't have the kind of "spark" unique to entrepreneurs that encourages him to start his own business independently. So Alex decided to join a startup, but he didn't know where to start.

I must mention that Alex is very clever. This is not only reflected in the analytical ability, but also impressed me by his excellent social skills when we talked. After a few simple chats, you can feel his ambition and enthusiasm for life. He is just the kind of person that startups will like. Although he has no experience, he has a strong learning ability. I believe that no matter what he decides to do, he can get started quickly.

After talking to Alex, I realized that the current startup team needs more people like him. In the past, startups were not so hot, and most outstanding talents devoted themselves to finance, consulting or large enterprises after graduation. Finally, the startup company also came out! Excellent young blood and energy are beginning to favor us, which is really awesome!

However, startups have many shortcomings in attracting new people. There are various talent markets and campus recruitment in universities all year round. Only a few technology companies will appear at the job fair, and most of them are big companies like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. There are even fewer startups recruited on campus, unless the startups have developed to a certain scale and the entrepreneurs themselves are alumni. ......

So, although Alex is very interested in startups, it is not surprising that he chose to join a big company as soon as he graduated in this environment. It can be said that many large companies have taken the lead in providing consulting, finance and other types of jobs for graduates before the start-up companies act. These companies have another advantage. They basically have special people who are responsible for familiarizing them with the industry background and understanding the industry knowledge.

Schools are also an important part. The school has established a career guidance center to provide students with career advice. This whole mechanism makes it easier for graduates to find their place in the job market. After they find a job, large enterprises provide systematic training to help novices enter the working state with confidence.

But our efforts in this regard are almost zero. Apart from Stanford and MIT, there are few startups on campus.

The following contents are aimed at fresh graduates who are interested in joining a startup company, hoping to help you understand what jobs and roles a startup company basically has.

Various roles in start-up companies

engineer

In startup companies, engineers refer to programmers, and this profession is often in short supply. If you want to set foot in this field, you need not only to learn the correct programming methods in class, but also to practice using modern programming languages and frameworks in your spare time. At 42floor, we value most whether this person can do his own project independently-something that young hackers do completely according to their own needs and ideas. We also hope to see his enthusiasm for the tools needed for his work. Of course, creativity is also indispensable. Basically, we want to recruit engineers who are keen to be themselves in their spare time.

Of all the positions needed by startups, the requirements for engineers are the most clear. So, spend more time honing your skills, you can do it!

Product owner

This position is usually referred to as product manager or PM for short, but now you'd better forget about management for the time being-if you join a startup for the first time, no matter how rich your experience in other fields is, no one or thing will give you management.

Product people are keen to build things and analyze traffic data. It is possible that they are engineers themselves, or have some programming skills (but they may lack professional background or have a strong interest in computer science).

Product leaders are usually doing the following things: designing and developing customers with Photoshop, working with engineers, quickly designing product prototypes, analyzing various transformation indicators, and managing projects. Generally speaking, you must be proficient in at least one of them to be qualified for this job.

People who want to make products can see if they have the above skills and check for leaks. More specific skills such as Photoshop and prototype design are especially worth your efforts. Photoshop, as a necessary skill, is not important here. The so-called product prototype design means that you can turn what you think into an actual model-you can write your own code or make good use of various SaaS software to make a product prototype more conveniently and quickly. Today, it is definitely a great skill to make full use of various SaaS products to make things.

salesman

I like to try to do one thing and get a satisfactory result. They don't mind doing repetitive work and will naturally "compete" with other salespeople. And these are exactly the qualities that salespeople need most. If you want to enter this field, you can try to join a bigger startup company, where you will learn the essence of sales. I don't recommend choosing a company of the size of Saleforce or Oracle Bone Inscriptions, because they will make you develop bad professional habits.

It is one of the characteristics of salespeople to keep moving forward and be aggressive. If you are a junior salesman in a startup company, please be prepared to answer 70 to 100 calls every day. According to my observation, many people who have been athletes are interested in doing sales work, and they can do it well (sorry, some are partial, but it is true).

Only by working hard and seeing the results can they bring them the excitement they like. They don't mind doing repetitive work, and naturally they will compete with other salespeople, which is also an essential quality for excellent salespeople.

If you are interested in becoming a salesperson, you can consider joining a slightly larger startup company, which will help you learn the essence of sales operation. I don't recommend choosing a company of the size of Saleforce or Oracle Bone Inscriptions, because you may get some bad professional habits. But a company like Box.net, which is in the late stage of its business, is very good. They will teach the right skills and techniques and benefit for life.

No matter which company you decide to join, the best preparation is to exercise yourself and make yourself invincible when looking for a job.

business development

Business development and sales are a little different. You need to love communication and establish contact with people. People in this line have the ability to communicate with anyone, but don't expect them to make more than 100 calls every day.

If you want to join, it will be very helpful to take several business courses, because after all, BD is going out to talk about cooperation with people. If you can only choose one course, it must be negotiation. If your school doesn't offer this course, it's ok to buy some good books on this subject. All the excellent BD I have contacted think they are masters of board games.

This job is difficult for beginners, unless you join a company at the beginning of your business and have a personal relationship with the founder. Most people who become senior BD start from the most basic sales work.

marketing management

Startups will have some traditional marketing methods, but not many. There are not many marketing posts in Internet startups that talk about brand building and brand information dissemination. Of course, this will still be needed, but startups will not set up positions for them. If you want to engage in traditional brand marketing, I suggest you go directly to large enterprises.

Excellent startups are currently recruiting growth hacker (a mixture of marketing and programming experts). You must be very good at data analysis and want to practice your SEO and SEM skills. But more importantly, you have to have the spirit of "love tossing"-you won't fiddle around, you will try your best to do some experiments to see if it works.

Similarly, the best preparation for applying for this position is to do more projects of your own in your spare time and conduct experiments to see if it can be translated into considerable user adoption rate. In this process, you will master all kinds of tricks and techniques.

Customer management/customer service

This is a good entry-level position. You need two skills: great empathy and good organizational skills. I can't teach you the same thing. If this function is not available, please make a detour. If you are good at empathy, you can communicate with relaxed customers and understand their needs.

People who have made outstanding achievements in this job are a little "organizational crazy". They are keen to try various CRM products (Zendesk, Streak, etc. ).

business manager

This is a very interesting career. As an office manager, especially when I joined a startup company in the early days, I have to face all kinds of complicated affairs. Such as office environment design, daily catering, human resource management, accounting affairs and so on.

On "organizational mania", the office manager may be even worse than the account manager. I also observed that people who get this position are often familiar with the founder and have personal relationships. It is also very important that the personal character of the office manager must conform to the company culture.

If you are interested in this job, you might as well spend some time visiting many startup companies to see if you can spark.

There are still many things to be done in the whole big entrepreneurial community in order to let the fresh talents who have just entered the society join the startup company. I hope this article can help you take the first step.

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