Your Roadmap for Joining a Startup - ThinkB1G
Transcript of Your Roadmap for Joining a Startup - ThinkB1G
Is a Startup Right for You?
High octane, intense, and a little chaotic• Building a company from the ground up involves a ton of hard
work and navigating risk & uncertainty Lean & mean• You need to get “into the weeds” and wear multiple hats
Value people who get things done• You must love to execute and get stuff done
Need people who take initiative• Expect mentoring, but not extensive supervision
If you’d prefer a more structured, supervised, predictable environment, then a startup is probably not for you
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Key Roles for Students & New Grads
Technical/Product Software Development Product Design & User
Experience (UX) QA & Testing Data Science DevOps
Business Business Development &
Sales Growth Hacking Account Management Marketing Other
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What Startups Look for in Candidates
Project-based experiences (personal/side) Intellectual curiosity & drive Key software/technical skills• For CS & engineers
Work experience Academics
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Personal/Side Projects are Critical
Startups want to see that you can build things, are always learning, and are passionate about your field
Personal projects trump class projects (hands down)• Devoting free time illustrates passion & curiosity to learn
“Doing” is more important than how you get there• Pursue projects of interest that demonstrate you’re picking
up skills outside the classroom Seek out the "hacker culture" at your school• It's not enough to be in the groups – you have to build things
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“What I Know Now Didn’t Come from Class”
Don’t limit yourself to just the material offered in class• Take advantage of opportunities offered by your department/school
Don’t waste time• Submit your assignments early and work on your own projects
Learn on your own• Khan Academy• Coursera• Code.org• Stanford Engineering• MIT OpenCourseWare• Channel9
There are plenty of opportunities out there – Everything is a click away. Connecting Talented Students with Amazing Startups ThinkB1G.com
Source: Den Delimarsky
Remember This
“I would hire someone with a 2.0 GPA from a no-name college and tons of side projects using cool tech versus a 4.0 MIT
CS grad who focuses only on school.”
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Personality Traits
This is particular to each company, but here are some common traits:
Intellectual curiosity • Evident desire to learn more about things
Passion• Deeply care about your areas of interest and exhibit that you’re willing to
make the effort to grow and expand your skills (because you love it) Self-starter• Exhibit ambition & drive in how you go about things
Do things differently• Anything that makes it clear that you didn’t just follow the herd
Commitment to personal growth and learning• Explore topics outside your field of interest, focus on self-improvement
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Obtaining Skills (for CS)
Go beyond your CS curriculum Learn more programming languages Try different operating systems Create apps Contribute to an open-source project Read tech books Spend sleepless nights trying to debug that web service
that fails every single time someone tries to upload a video larger than 200MB.
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Communicating & Engaging with Employers
Resume (what’s important)• Name & contact info• Projects and work experience• Languages/tools/frameworks/etc (if software/engineering)• Educational info & GPA• Extra-curricular, hobbies, etc.
Highlight your body of work• GitHub (huge plus) - great way to show off all of those side projects• Online portfolio or personal website• Personal blog
Kill the generic cover letter and send a personal email• Communicate why you want to work for the company• Personal touch and effort significantly increases probability of a response
“We can usually get a good feel for how curious and motivated someone is by the way they talk about what they're working on, whether it's class or side projects.”
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Don’t Be This Person
Michael,
I am very interested in the ThinkBig opportunity I came across on the XXX career website. My experiences with YYY and ZZZ have equipped me to successfully handle making fact based decisions, business development, and strategic thinking. In particular, as a detail oriented, competitive, self starter with a strategic approach to achieving objectives, my ability to build a business case to drive forward inflection point decisions would ensure I am challenged to make an impact.
I would welcome the opportunity to speak with you. Please find my resume attached for your review. I look forward to hearing from you.
Kind regards,
XXXXX Connecting Talented Students with Amazing Startups ThinkB1G.com
Takeaways
Project-based experiences rule the day• Projects > GPA• Find the “hacker culture” on campus and build things
Your curiosity and passion need to come through your resume and company interactions• Explore new ideas & ways of doing things• Challenge yourself outside the classroom (and major)
Assemble a body of work that demonstrates and illustrates the above• Leverage an online portfolio and/or GitHub
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ThinkB1G Resources
Openings• ThinkB1G.com/Startups
Newsletter• ThinkB1G.com/Students
Student Profile• ThinkB1G.com/Students
Prepping for the Technical Interview• ThinkB1G.com/Students
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More Resources
HelpU• Connects businesses to
students
VentureLoop.com• Alerts you to new
openings at venture-backed startups
TechGen
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Apply to TechGen – the common app for internships at Boston’s
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Go to TheTechGeneration.com to applyFollow #TechGen on twitter @TheTechGen
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