/biz/ - Business & Finance

[Anonymous No.378447]

Do you guys have any experiences with startup companies?

[Anonymous No.378452]

No but damn I wish I was in that pic. Just me and a group of my bros working toward a common goal and becoming rich together.

[Anonymous No.378461]

>>378447
Yes. I dropped out of college and moved to San Francisco to work at a startup many years ago. I worked 27 days in a row after I arrived. I've worked at four startups so far, and I'm now CTO of a tiny startup. Ask me anything.

[Anonymous No.378473]

The bubble will burst. The inflated egos alone should speed up the process...

[Anonymous No.378484]

>>378461
a-are you rich?

what programming languages do you know?

[Anonymous No.378493]

>>378461
Were any of them successful?
What is the startup at which you are CTO?
Were you ever paid in cash? How much?
How do you find startups?

[Anonymous No.378495]

>>378484
Rich? No. I made 158k last year. I started at 75k when I moved to SF. The companies I've been with have either failed or are still running, so I haven't made any money off of equity yet. My salary is pretty comfortable for this area (where 100k is solidly middle class and 150k is not much higher on the food chain) and my lifestyle is decent (I have a sports car and a literbike).

I have professional experience with a bunch of languages, but nowadays I primarily use Ruby (with/without Rails) and Go for stuff for which Ruby is too slow.

>>378493
None have been successful yet. I'm not revealing my identity (I'm not really that interesting, but still). Every gig has been salary + equity. Note that salary means you are not paid hourly. No one here talks about hourly wages. Check angel.co or weworkremotely.com or sfbay.craigslist.org under the relevant sections for your skills (internet engineers, etc.). LinkedIn can help. Change your location to San Francisco and you'll start getting carpet bombed by recruiters.

[Anonymous No.378651]

I did a couple of startups in my day, including one that I ran.

Never again. If you're an employee, they work you like crazy and lie to you about how good things are looking. This is called "blowing sunshine up your ass".

If you're the owner, you're basically thinking "this is bullshit, why did I do this?" erry day.

Working at a boring job for as few hours and as much pay as possible is the way to go. Save like a mad bastard, invest wisely, and you can basically retire.

[Anonymous No.378681]

>>378495
you're rich bro

even if you pay out the ass for everything, that everything you pay for is going to be NICE.

but hey pat yourself on the back at least

[Anonymous No.378767]

>>378651
Please elaborate

[Anonymous No.378897]

>>378651
>I have given up on doing anything monumental in life and just want a pleb paycheck and to retire and sit on my ass all day doing nothing, forever.

You are a bitch. Just give up and buy a bullet for yourself. I'll be over here with my bros, working toward a worthwhile goal, fighting the good fight.

[Anonymous No.378906]

>>378495
In your opinion, how feasible is it for someone to teach himself a language/languages and get decent employment out of it? What would that take? Thanks.

[Anonymous No.378960]

>>378897
Says that and then posts a picture of Bitcoin.

Topfuckingkek

[Anonymous No.378977]

>>378960

That's probably the joke.

[Anonymous No.378985]

>>378906
Startups care more about your ability to deliver than your credentials or history. If you have a portfolio of projects you've completed (or better, software you've actually shipped to end users or a website with active users), you're better off than the guy who has a PhD in computer science but nothing to show for it.

Pick a language (*cough* http://tryruby.org *cough*), build some shit in it, build a portfolio website and list them on your résumé/CV, and carpet bomb resumes at startups. If you're very dedicated, you can have a 80-90k junior engineer position within six months. Startups are willing to take risks on people who may not work out. If you can show that you can learn on your feet, you'll get more responsibilities are more pay.

Also, get used to that feeling over being in over your head. It never goes away. If it does, you're not learning quickly enough and need to change projects/jobs. You're not paid because you're an expert at a given technology, you're paid because you can get the job done.

[Anonymous No.379007]

>>378960
Jelly of my Bitgains?

[Anonymous No.379032]

>>378447
I once started my own paper company after being fired from the one I helped grow. It was so successful we got bought out by them and I got my old job back and higher pay.

[Anonymous No.379047]

>>378985

Hey. I just got out of high school, and I'm really interested in this stuff, but I'm not entirely sure yet.

For jobs at companies like these, is a college degree required? If I learn a language or even multiple like java, C and Ruby on my own could I land a job? Even at say $40k starting salary that would be more than enough for me.

If a degree is required, I would assume Computer Science would be a safe bet. I got into a decent public state university, but now I'm very on the edge about whether I want to go into so much debt so soon.

One last question for you. Are all of these jobs in California? I know San Francisco is where the big money is, but I would really like to stay in or around New England.

[Anonymous No.379063]

>>379032
Why would you go back to a company that fired you?

[Anonymous No.379066]

>>379032

Ebin joke mate :^)

[Anonymous No.379270]

>>378767
Well, I'm not sure what else there is to say.

From my experiences, start-ups are a waste of time. The odds are very poor that anything will come out of it and if you do too many of them, not only will you be behind normal people financially, but you'll be burned out and disillusioned.

For the guy that spouted his ignorant, macho bullshit about "fighting the good fight", you're just plain wrong. If it was a good fight, I might be interested. But, not only are the odds stacked against you, but even if on the off off chance it DID amount to anything, you're lucky to get much out of it after all of the VCs / investors (and to a lesser extent, founders) get their take.

Like I said, find a regular job, invest like crazy and you'll be much better off in many, many ways.

I don't even understand why people waste time with them, it's insane.

[Anonymous No.379273]

>>379047
With a skill like programming, a degree doesn't matter at all. Most companies will gladly hire a massive fuckup if hes got a great portfolio. So work on having an impressive portfolio. If you want to go get a degree in the meanwhile, by all means do so, but your portfolio is major so ensure that's your priority at all times.

Programming doesn't need you to move, so don't worry about location so much. Majority of the programming jobs, at least creatively are on the west coast, but there are plenty of jobs in your area as well - most likely none as "startuppy" as a west coast company would feel.

[Anonymous No.379288]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeDbZQpugzU

[Anonymous No.379543]

>>379047

Like >>379273 said, portfolio > degree. Degree isn't even really useful for getting your foot in the door at a startup. A beefy Github profile or LinkedIn (with desired work location set as your current location + appropriate keywords on the page) is much, much, much more valuable.

Startups are pretty heavy stacked in the Bay Area/Silicon Valley, but there's also opportunities in Portland. There are also burgeoning startup scenes in New York City and Boston, but they don't pay nearly as well.

[Anonymous No.379575]

>>378447
yes, and we never pretended we were short of tables in order to make things look ad-hoc and edgy

[Anonymous No.379585]

>>379270

What kind of start-ups were you a part of?
A bunch of my friends and I started a videography company, and we're doing alright so far.

[Anonymous No.379597]

I was the first employee of a startup for 1.5 years or so. It didn't really go anywhere but I did learn a lot and am now starting my own business.

They're still trucking along but are struggling to find traction with the product.

[Anonymous No.379630]

>>379585
It was all tech startups. I was a programmer in one and the tech head at my own. One was creating business software and another was social networking / social events company.

When I think "startup", I usually think "software company", and even more specifically, a software company in a trendy area of San Francisco. I guess I never heard of a non-software company being called a "startup".

Maybe it's different for those types of companies.

Now, I work at a mid-sized software company that's doing well and it's treated me pretty well. No lies, no bullshit, no fake company stock, all legit

[Anonymous No.379645]

>>378495
>rich
>no
>i made 158k last year

assuming 158k is ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY EIGHT THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS then you are very fucking rich.

don't even try to act otherwise you stupid piece of shit.

[Anonymous No.379655]

>>379645

>what is cost of living

I don't think you truly understand how expensive housing is in commiefornia

[Anonymous No.379657]

>>379655
Especially in the Bay Area.

I live in the East Bay and for my commute to be less than an hour travel I'd have to fork over between 800-900 a month for a room.

[Anonymous No.379671]

>>378461

What did you major in?

[Anonymous No.379678]

>>379645
The average price of a 1 bedroom apartment to rent (not own) in SF costs almost $3,000/mo. $150,000/year ain't shit if you live in the city. You're above average, but barely so. As >>379655 and >>379657 said, cost of living is super real here. Everything is expensive and nearly 10% sales tax on everything to boot.

That said, I'd rather make more and pay more than make less and pay less. Reducing an expense in the former nets me more money than in the latter.

>>379630
>no fake company stock

Just to be clear for everyone reading, company stock is not _actually_ fake. It's just unlikely to materialize into anything of worth. Most startups fail. The ones you hear about though (e.g., the masseuse at Google who became a millionaire because she joined the company early) are massive outliers and should be taken with a grain of salt.

>>379671
Computer Science, of course. It was more fun (and better, really) to skip the boring classes and learn how to do stuff like set up Linux on an old computer to run a CS 1.6 server, write basic OpenGL programs, exploit poorly written PHP websites with egregious security bugs, and so on.

I was failing out of school and was about to lose financial aid when I got an offer through a friend to work at a startup in SF. I went there and interviewed and had an offer within an hour. I moved to SF on three days notice after that. It was a huge inflection point in my life. If I had stayed in school and gotten my bachelor's degree, I'd likely be level 2 tech support at Comcast or something making 40k/yr and hating myself.

[Anonymous No.379681]

>>379678
Oh, and 38% of my income goes to state and federal taxes, so I had about 98k after that.

Chop out rent * 12, transportation (public transit or your vehicle) to get to and from work, high cost of food and groceries, and it evaporates much more quickly than you'd think.

I only make 100k/yr now, but I own a big chunk of the company. I work from home so I save a lot of money by not commuting to and from work five days per week.

[Anonymous No.379704]

>>379681
hey anon I'm an ambitious CS student. what kind of things have the startups you've worked with done?


Also anything I should study besides the obvious things that will help me land a job?

[Anonymous No.379722]

>>378447
>Do you guys have any experiences with startup companies?

Here is how startup companies work nowadays:

A technician and maybe a business guy get together, put out a prototype and it gets some traction. Then they go look for angel money, which is like $200k to $1 million. This means they have another year or two to work on the idea. Maybe they hire some more people. If their company is growing revenue (or users) fast enough, they then go look for VC. This is in the neighborhood of $1-$20 million. At this point you get a better office and start hiring a lot of people.

If revenue (or user) growth keeps happening, at some point you either get more VC (Series B) or IPO the stock.

The cost to start a tech business has plummeted in recent years to the entrepreneurs benefit. So nowadays the breakdown is angels get 20%, VC series A gets 20%, the founders get 50% and there is 10% left over for the employees. Most of that 10% will go to top managers, top tech talent etc. A founder is anyone who worked full time on the company before it got angel money. If you get angel money and pay some tech $70k a year, they're not a founder.

[Anonymous No.379727]

>>379722
To continue...

If you're just out of school, maybe working at a startup makes sense. You see how things work etc. It can also be easier to get into than a lot of big companies - there's not a lot of bureaucracy and red tape and formalism usually.

One thing though is this - if you join a startup that got $400k in angel money, and you're a tech making $70k a year and the first hire, with a tech and business founder - you're employee #3, yet you're limited to that 10% of stock for employees. In fact, that is what all employees the company ever has will draw from. You'll get a bigger chunk of it then if you were employee #20, but...you start to think how if you were a co-founder, you'd have 25% of the company at IPO and control of the company.

It kind of makes sense to do your own startup.

[Anonymous No.379751]

>>379681
>Oh, and 38% of my income goes to state and federal taxes, so I had about 98k after that.
>heartattack.jpg

[Anonymous No.379752]

>>378960
Lel
Thought the same thing
Bitcoin is the epitome of lazy uncritical thinking

[Anonymous No.379769]

>>379704
I've worked on everything from Windows desktop software to building and scaling very large websites to developing backend servers which have really insane requirements (hundreds of thousands of concurrent TCP connections, < 15ms response time to queries, processing 250,000 requests/sec).

Web and mobile are still the biggest things. If you know Rails + iOS development and can build website-backed mobile apps, you can basically get whatever salary you want here now. There's a big shortage of skilled developers.

[Anonymous No.379775]

>>379769
why rails?

[Anonymous No.379779]

>>379769
Thanks for sharing your experiences. It is shedding a lot of light on the career I want to build.

Can you elaborate on what a website-backed mobile app is? Like the gmail app for gmail website?

I've started doing Android tutorials but do not have access to XCode. Are Android developers just as in demand as iOS developers?

[Anonymous No.379825]

>>379775
Developer time costs much, much more than CPU time. Ruby is not a fast language at all, but it's very fast to write software in. As a developer your goal is not to write fast code, it's to deliver maximum business value. The time from inception of an idea to deploying it to production is critical. If you write something in Ruby and it works but can't scale, you rewrite it in a faster language. Don't prematurely optimize, it's a very common pitfall and a giant waste of everyone's time.

Also, server deployment is mostly scripted using Ruby (Chef, Puppet, Capistrano, etc.). Some shops use Python, but the majority use Ruby. It's the best language to know here overall.

>>379779
A lot of mobile apps will retrieve data (almost always JSON) from a backend web server/API somewhere and render it in the app. When you upload a photo in the app, it probably sends a HTTP POST request to the same server/API. If you can not only build the mobile app but also the site or API behind it, that is a valuable skill to have. Look at stuff like "restkit" for examples.

I don't really know anything about Android, sorry. 99% of the people I know here have iPhones. It seems very few people who actually work in tech have Android devices, but since every major iOS app has an Android equivalent I'd assume the demand is nearly as high. Maybe comb some job posting sites (like the ones I linked up above) to gauge the demand. Android will always play second fiddle to iOS because iOS users on average spend a LOT more money (this is fact, not anecdote) even though there are fewer of them.

[Anonymous No.379831]

>>379825
And how do you advertize, what's your plans?

[Anonymous No.379868]

>>379825
Thanks again for replying! You've given me a huge head start into what I should be focusing on.

Any more advice for valuable skills to acquire, or just any sage advice for being valuable as a programmer?

[Anonymous No.380047]

>>379825

Thanks for all the helpful answers.

So, what should go into a portfolio? If I develop a little iOS app on my own or create a website is that a good start? What else could I put in there? What do companies like to see in a portfolio?

Also, is it hard for a young guy with little to no experience to break in to the industry? I don't need a glamorous job to start, just a foot in the door.

[Anonymous No.380138]

>>379831
Not sure what you mean.

>>379868
Learn to communicate with people of different technology skill levels. Learn to manage people's expectations. If you can make people feel comfortable with something they don't fully understand, you will become a trusted entity who gets stuff done. This will net you more responsibilities and a commensurate title. In other words, it's a good way to advance quickly and eventually join management. It also applies to ANY line of work. A mechanic who makes his customers understand and feel comfortable with the work being performed is going to have a lot more repeat business than a mechanic who leaves a customer feeling like they're being ripped off.

Also, listen to Scotty's advice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xRqXYsksFg

Underpromise and overdeliver.

>>380047
Anything that shows you have technical ability or the ability to see a product through its entire lifecycle from inception -> production can go in your portfolio. Mobile apps are good, websites are great, and they're doubly valuable if they are actually *used* by people.

Experience isn't necessary. If you have a couple projects and you show that you're hungry and eager to learn, companies will take a chance on you as a junior engineer. You might come on at a lower pay for three months or something. Be prepared to talk about the projects you've done in depth and also what currently excites you. You're not selling your technical abilities when you're a junior developer, you're selling your potential to be a valuable contributor within a short time period.

Learn to sell yourself. Watch this. If you think Baldwin's character is an asshole, you need to check your narcissistic attitude at the door. Be ruthless and aggressive and you'll get what you want: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kZg_ALxEz0

[Anonymous No.380354]

>>378452
Just touching dicks and guzzling each others' cum

[Anonymous No.380904]

>>378461
>Ask me anything.
What is it like to be both poor and have poor judgement?

[Anonymous No.380963]

>>379825
>Use Ruby
>very few people who actually work in tech have Android devices
This man is an idiot. Do not do business with him.

[Anonymous No.381215]

>>380904
Pic related, my taxable income for last year from my primary job. I also had income from capital gains (making money on the stock market). I drive a Porsche and have a pretty good-sized professional network. I'm two degrees of connection away from many powerful people. I think I made the right choice vs staying in school and getting my Bachelor's degree.

>>380963
Sorry, that should have said "people who actually work in tech *here*". I have no idea what phone marketshare looks like in tech outside of SF. My posts are SF-centric, so, yes, Ruby is the most important language you could know in SF at present.

[Anonymous No.381526]

>>379868

> use ruby as first language
Kek

Learn C first anon. Then learn whatever-the-fuck.

[Anonymous No.381569]

>>381526
I will never understand this mentality, but I don't like it.
If you want to make money you don't complicate your life going after more complex shit if it isn't necessary.

You learn and use the skills that gets the job done.

You can be a proficient ruby programmer without knowing C. How do you know? If the person that should make money from the application you created is making money, you are good to go.

I speak like this because I know from experience that this mentality can't bring good things. I lost a lot of time and money going after the fancy, professional, super-efficient thing.
In the end I made a shitload more with much simpler things, and I'm still doing more money with older and "inefficient" technologies than with the fancy ones that I know but can't apply.

[Anonymous No.382486]

Just found the latest article on FS:

http://www.financialsamurai.com/stock-options-are-for-suckers-who-accept-below-market-rate-pay/

If you want to join a startup, go in with both eyes open.

[Anonymous No.382514]

>>381569
>>381526

I'm surprised no one has mentioned JAVA or PERL I thought they were sort of the standard for internet based programing - have things changed?

[Anonymous No.382550]

>>382486
Yeah, just pretend that your equity has no value as that is the most likely outcome. If you join a startup as an engineer after it has about 10 people, you'll be unlikely to have more than 0.25% of the company after your vesting period is over. The chances of you balling out of control off of your stock options are very low.

>>382514
Java the language is not really used outside of Android development at startup companies because it is basically diametrically opposed to rapid development. JVM-based languages like Scala and Clojure are sometimes used, but only in a small subset of companies. (Yammer, etc.)

Java-based software is used pretty commonly. You're much more likely to encounter stuff like Hadoop, Hive, ElasticSearch, JRuby, Jython, etc. than to encounter actual Java code.

Perl is non-existent. Ruby has almost completely overtaken Perl at startups. Ruby is very Perl-inspired (regex as first class datatype, postconditions, etc.), is actually fully object-oriented, and is much, much faster. Rubygems also rivals CPAN in terms of available libraries. Chances are someone better than you has already written code that does what you want to do.

[Anonymous No.382813]

>>382486
That post was great, but holy shit is that blog full of bullshit. It just keeps getting worse as I read on.