This document discusses reasons to choose working at a startup over an established company and provides tips for getting a job at a startup. It argues that startups allow you to compress your career progress and wealth building into just a few years compared to a lifetime at a traditional company. While startups have more risk, the impact of your work is more visible. It also notes that startup jobs have less red tape, fewer politics, and allow you to leapfrog roles. The tips suggest researching the company thoroughly, emphasizing metrics, ensuring you are a strong culture fit, using creative resumes and messages, and potentially doing unpaid work if rejected but a strong fit.

1. Why Choose a Startup?
(and tips for how to get in if you do)
http://bit.ly/whychooseastartup
Rand Fishkin | @randfish | moz.com/rand

2. 4 Dangerous Myths About
Startup Jobs

3. #1: Startups Do Not Compress Your Wealth Horizon
“If a fairly good hacker is worth $80,000 a year at a big
company, then a smart hacker working very hard without
any corporate bullshit to slow him down should be able to
do work worth about $3 million a year.”
“For example, one way to make a million dollars would be to
work for the Post Office your whole life, and save every
penny of your salary. Imagine the stress of working for the
Post Office for fifty years. In a startup you compress all this
stress into three or four years.”
http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html

4. #1: Startups Do Not Compress Your Wealth Horizon
“If a fairly good hacker is worth $80,000 a year at a big
company, then a smart hacker working very hard without
any corporate bullshit to slow him down should be able to
do work worth about $3 million a year.”
“For example, one way to make a million dollars would be to
work for the Post Office your whole life, and save every
penny of your salary. Imagine the stress of working for the
Post Office for fifty years. In a startup you compress all this
stress into three or four years.”
http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html

5. #2: Startups Are Always 80+ Hour Weeks
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2007-05-19/

6. #3: At Least You’ll Always Love What You Do
http://poorlydrawnlines.com/comic/startup-ideas/

7. #4: The Culture/Environment is Always Better
http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/8191317327/

8. 3 Powerful Truths About
Startup Jobs

9. #1: Less Red Tape, Fewer Politics, More GSD

10. #2: Your Career Can Leapfrog Intermediate Roles

11. #3: The Impact of Your Efforts Will Be Far More Visible
http://themetapicture.com/if-my-thoughts-were-visible/

12. Startups vs.
Established Companies

13. Structured vs. Unstructured
At an established company, your At a startup, your tasks and
work/role is likely to fit a relatively responsibilities will change regularly, and
stable pattern progress will feel more like a scatterplot

14. Big Team vs. Small Team
http://37signals.com/svn/posts/995-if-youre-working-in-a-big-group-youre-fighting-human-nature

15. Repeatable Model vs. Discoverable Model
Startups find themselves with lots of false
Established companies usually have a “eureka” moments, followed by periods of
repeatable model for income/growth fast change to find a repeatable model.

16. Risk vs. Reward
Established companies are often Startups are perceived to have
perceived to have less risk. This is tremendous risk, but startup
true in some areas, e.g. benefits, founders and high-skill-demand
higher comp, cash balance, etc, but employees (e.g. engineers,
has some big holes, too, e.g. designers, marketers, product folks)
obsolescence of skills, layoff risk, usually don’t have a difficult time
negative associations, etc. finding new roles.

17. 5 Tips for
Earning a Startup Job

18. #1: Research the Company, Product, & Market
From the SEOmoz Facebook page and Rand’s personal blog

19. CAVEAT: Be Careful About External Sources
Whole Bunches of Wrong Info

20. #2: Show That You Are Metrics Driven
http://followerwonk.com
http://gmailmeter.com

21. How Obsessed With Metrics? VERY!!

22. #3: Be A Culture Fit BEFORE You Ever Interview
Even if you don’t know people there, you
know people who know them!
http://linkedin.com

23. #4: Creative Resumes & Messages WORK
http://www.behance.net/gallery/Facebook-New-Look-Concept/6504647

24. #5:Turned Down? Do The Work Anyway*.
* Only do this if you’re
confident that the
culture/personality fit was
excellent. Otherwise, it
gets creepy and weird.
No one likes creepy and
weird.

25. Why Choose a Startup?
(and tips for how to get in if you do)
http://bit.ly/whychooseastartup
Rand Fishkin | @randfish | moz.com/rand