Your Roadmap for Joining a Startup - ThinkB1G

Your Roadmap for Landing a Role at a Startup

Why Join a Startup?

Is a Startup Right for You?

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

Connecting Talented Students with Amazing Startups ThinkB1G.com

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


What Startups Look for in Candidates

What Startups Look for in Candidates

Project-based experiences (personal/side) Intellectual curiosity & drive Key software/technical skills• For CS & engineers

Work experience Academics


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


“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

GitHub/Online Portfolio is Important

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.”


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


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.


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.”


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

Your Edge• Passion• Proof• Personalize• Persistence• Patience

Harsh Realities

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


ThinkB1G Resources

Openings• ThinkB1G.com/Startups

Newsletter• ThinkB1G.com/Students

Student Profile• ThinkB1G.com/Students

Prepping for the Technical Interview• ThinkB1G.com/Students


http://www.jotform.us/form/42237672779164

More Resources

HelpU• Connects businesses to

students

VentureLoop.com• Alerts you to new

openings at venture-backed startups

TechGen


20

Want to intern at a tech startup?Get real, hands-on experience.

Apply to TechGen – the common app for internships at Boston’s

hottest tech startups

Sales * Marketing * DesignEngineering * Product Management

Go to TheTechGeneration.com to applyFollow #TechGen on twitter @TheTechGen

• Browse our startups• Get noticed by companies• Find your internship

No More Coffee Runs?’s: [email protected]

More Resources


http://goo.gl/9GTWsu

Your Roadmap for Landing a Role at a Startup

Your Roadmap for Joining a Startup - ThinkB1G

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