The title pretty much spells it out, but I’m putting together some practical advice for people that want to crack into tech (startups specifically). Most posts I’ve seen are flowery and non-specific, so I want to give more targeted advice.

This isn’t supposed to be some self-marketing post or demonstration about how much I know. I just found myself having conversations with quite a few people who are interested in getting involved in the tech scene, and when many of the same questions started popping up, I thought it would be easier to lay it out in one place. This is my personal view, take it with a grain of salt, and a lot of it is anecdotal. Everyone might have a different experience, this is what I’ve seen, heard, and experienced. I’ll write about:

• Process
• Important Things To Know And Do
• What To Expect/Not Expect

Process

• Figure out what general sector you might want to be in or learn more about. This is an important step because you’re going to learn a lot about whatever industry you’re diving into, so make sure it’s something you like. It doesn’t have to be too specific, it can be as broad as “healthcare”, “cars”, “finance”, etc. Some geographies tend to skew better for certain industries, but you can typically find good companies virtually anywhere. And while pure consumer tech companies might seem sexier since it’s something the average person might use or an app your friend might download, those businesses are typically riskier. Don’t discount B2B or B2B2C companies, especially since they generally build sustainable revenue streams and have more clear monetizations paths.
• Get on newsletters. Many startups choose newsletters as a means of distributing their postings. Some good ones includes Inside Startups, Launch Ticker, and Alleywatch but there are many out there. You should also use these newsletters as a means of generally knowing what’s going on in tech. Dan Primack’s Term Sheet, the CB Insights Newsletter(shameless plug), and StrictlyVC are good starts.
• Personally, I think people relatively new to tech and without deep industry expertise should choose companies that are Series B or later (or 100+ employees). Hunter Walk has a good piece that I agree with about why. But in general, a very small % of people thrive in unstructured environments early in their career. Most people believe they’ll learn more in unstructured environments, but most people have also never ACTUALLY been in an unstructured environment. And if you’re reading this post to get advice about how to navigate this unstructured process, you would probably benefit from structure.
• There are a certain group of investors that tend to have better outcomes. Again, most startups fail so this is no guarantee. But there are some investors that tend to generate returns more consistently. Check out their websites and go through their portfolio companies to see if any interest you. CB Insights has a good list of those investors at the bottom of this post.
• Culture* and a mentor are the most important things. The company mission will change, the product will change, your role will definitely change. But good culture and a good mentor to learn from are the most important short term things to worry about and generally will influence your entire time at the company. People tend to try to rationalize two-year game plans when assessing a job at a startup, but it’s not possible because things change drastically in two years. Just find a group of people you think you’d enjoy working alongside because you will spend many hours in the trenches with them and learning from them.
• I put a big asterisk around culture because people tend to associate culture with ping pong tables and ball pits. When I say culture I mean things like “How open is the company to hearing ideas from team members?”, “What are things that your company does to reinforce the culture?”, “What are the top things a company values in it’s employees and what are examples where that’s been successful?”. The answer to these should be the same way you would answer those questions. And side note, companies that place high emphasis on perks and activities as what makes their culture tend to attract people who also emphasize those things, and generally put perks forward first to mask weak parts of the organization internally.
• Do not cast out roles based on dumb stigmas or because you think you’re too good for them. People have a poor understanding/outlook on sales, account management, etc. when the reality is that you’ll probably learn the most about your industry in those roles, they’re probably the most critical roles at the company (no one cares about a beautiful product that doesn’t make any money) and they’re some of the hardest workers at companies. Besides there’s no such thing as a clear cut “ideas guy” or “strategy team” for most companies, and they definitely don’t want to hear it from someone graduating college. As I said before roles are generally fluid and you will be able to tackle things you’re interested once at a company.
• Cold emailing 100% works. Many companies don’t allocate a ton of resources to recruiting when they’re small, so reaching out both shows you took the time to research the company and helps out the company themselves. Find an email and shoot it over.
• In my opinion, networking events are useless for the most part. Your time would be better spent cold Twitter DMing or LinkedIn messaging someone more entry level at a company you’re interested in and asking to meet up to talk more about the company.

Important Things To Know And Do

• RESEARCH A COMPANY THOROUGHLY BEFORE AN INTERVIEW. This shouldn’t need to be spelled out, but you’d be shocked how many people don’t do this. If you’re not sure what a company does, read the latest funding announcement about a company, because these tend to spell out what the company does in the least amount of jargon. I also highly recommend watching a talk with the founder of said company and read blog posts on the site.
• Get on twitter and/or start blogging and/or build out your github repo and/or just generally start developing an online presence. Resumes suck, and most interviews are trying to gauge your thought process and personality as an individual anyway. Blogging and twitter can give a more dynamic view into the kind of person you are, and generally gives more to talk about in the interview.
• Once you get an offer, you need to understand how a capitalization table (“cap table”) works. Wherever you go, you’ll most likely be getting equity and you need to understand how shares work. I 1000000% recommend going through this entire deck with a full understanding because the only person that wants you to understand equity in this scenario is yourself, the business has no incentive to do this (unless they’re very nice). For example, did you know you can actually end up LOSING money in certain scenarios?
• Big things to know and ask regarding equity: What % of the company are the shares and how was that calculated? Who is on the cap table? What do the liquidation preferences of the investors look like? What is the current valuation of the company? How long are the stock exercise windows? Is the company using RSUs (restricted stock units)? A good list of questions here.

What To Expect/Not Expect

• Your schedule will be more variable the faster the company is growing. There will also be times you will have to stay late at the company. This happens.
• You will have plenty of days where it feels like you’re doing menial work. Building a company from the bottom up sometimes requires this, just do it.
• You will not come into this company with a revolutionary idea that everyone wants to implement. Learn the ropes, understand why processes are done the way they are, and if you have an idea work on it AFTER your other given responsibilities.
• Companies that have a lot of employees or have raised a lot of money are not necessarily always doing well. In fact if a startup’s hiring clip is too fast, you should be more skeptical of the culture.
• You will not get rich from doing a startup. Statistically the chance your startup creates life-changing wealth for you are fractional and you will make more money working in many other industries.
• On that note, you will probably take a pay cut when you do a startup (depending on what stage the startup is). If your startup is not paying market rate, you should make sure you have an options package that supplements this. Calculate general market rate using Glassdoor and looking up other comparable rates at other companies for similar positions.
• Expect to learn a lot. While I wanted to avoid clichés as much as possible I genuinely believe this one: you will learn the most in the shortest amount of time at a startup, and develop close meaningful bonds with those around you due to shared struggle and solidarity.

I’d love to actually update this list with interesting pieces of practical advice that others have about this topic, so if you have one please comment or reach out to me @nikillinit on twitter.