NEARLY 11,000 JOBS AVAILABLE AT VENTURE-BACKED START-UPS

November 16th, 2009 by admin

nvca logoStartUpHire_Logo

Contact:
Channa Brooks, Tenor Communications for NVCA, channa@tenorcom.com, 302-368-2345
Robin Bectel, New Venture Communications for StartUpHire, rbectel@newventurecom.com, 571-312-1448

NEARLY 11,000 JOBS AVAILABLE AT VENTURE-BACKED START-UPS

NVCA and StartUpHire Celebrate Global Entrepreneurship Week with “Help Wanted” Initiative

November 16, 2009, Arlington, VA — Thousands of America’s venture capital-backed start-up companies are bucking the job-cutting trend and actively seeking new employees, according the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and the job board StartUpHire.com. Despite mounting job losses nationwide, StartUpHire currently lists nearly 11,000 jobs available at more than 2,500 companies across various industries, states, and job functions.

As part of Global Entrepreneurship Week 2009, the NVCA and StartUpHire will highlight the contributions of these young entrepreneurial companies to economic growth by:

  • Releasing jobs data by geography, industry, and job function on both websites throughout the week.
  • Creating a permanent link from the NVCA website to the StartUpHire website so that job seekers can easily connect to openings at venture-backed companies.
  • Publishing testimonials from start-up company employees on their work experiences – all in 140 characters or less. To submit your start-up story please visit www.startuphire.com/stories by Wednesday, November 18, 2009.

The two organizations first partnered to report venture-backed job availability in early 2009.  The job listings on StartUpHire represent an important segment of the total jobs at venture-backed companies nationwide.

“Global Entrepreneurship Week celebrates the risk-taking, innovative thinking, and passion that drive entrepreneurs to build sustainable companies,” said Mark Heesen, president, National Venture Capital Association. “A significant factor of entrepreneurial success is hiring the right people, a tenet for which venture capitalists have a daily appreciation. This week we join the rest of the world in formally honoring those employees who take the risks necessary to grow our start-up community and build the U.S. entrepreneurial economy,” Heesen added.

“It should be noted that the value of StartUpHire goes beyond the actual job listings. These companies are not only creating jobs but they are doing so in the industries which will keep America competitive both economically and technologically.  Start-up companies engender an  entrepreneurial culture that lives long after the early days, often inspiring employees to spin out and create entirely new companies with what they have learned,” said Steve Fredrick, partner, Grotech Ventures and a founder of StartUpHire.

Please visit the NVCA and StartUpHire websites each day this week to see more details about job availability at venture-backed companies:

  • Tuesday, November 17 – venture-backed job openings in each state and region
  • Wednesday, November 18 – venture-backed job openings parsed by industry
  • Thursday, November 19 – venture-backed job openings listed by function (marketing, sales, etc.)
  • Friday, November 20 – release of start-up “short stories”: 140 character testimonials from venture-backed employers and employees

The National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) represents more than 400 venture capital firms in the United States. NVCA’s mission is to foster greater understanding of the importance of venture capital to the U.S. economy, and support entrepreneurial activity and innovation.  According to a 2009 Global Insight study, venture-backed companies accounted for 12.1 million jobs and $2.9 trillion in revenue in the U.S. in 2008. The NVCA represents the public policy interests of the venture capital community, strives to maintain high professional standards, provides reliable industry data, sponsors professional development, and facilitates interaction among its members. For more information about the NVCA, please visit www.nvca.org.

StartUpHire is the job search engine dedicated to recruiting exceptional talent to jobs at venture capital-backed companies.  Our mission is to connect talented individuals to exciting career opportunities at venture-backed startups and to accelerate the team building process for companies and their investors.  These are some of the most rewarding careers on the planet, but they historically have been difficult to identify.  StartUpHire sponsors include Argy, Comerica, Calysto, Cooley, DLA, GlobalLogic, MMV Financial, Morrison Foerster, New Venture Communications, SIIA, and Sonnenschein. www.StartUpHire.com.

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Tell Us Your Start-Up Stories … in 140 Characters or Less!

November 3rd, 2009 by admin

For Global Entrepreneurship Week USA (Nov 16-20), the NVCA (National Venture Capital Association) and StartUpHire are partnering to promote the thousands of jobs available at venture-backed companies.  As part of this effort, we are soliciting start-up “short” stories … in 140 characters or less!

By following this link, you will have the opportunity to share a sound bite with the world about the unique attributes of your organization and what inspires you about working at a venture-backed start-up.

Companies and start-up employees are invited to describe start-up life as briefly and creatively as they can.  We welcome all submissions from all employees and will accept multiple submissions from the same company.  These “short” stories will be published the week of November 16th on the StartUpHire and NVCA websites, along with links to the company home page and/or their StartUpHire job listings.  The best submissions will be highlighted in a national press release on November 20.

Thank you for your support in telling these great stories!  We look forward to hearing from you.

Tell us your start-up “short” stories: http://www.startuphire.com/stories/

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Do you have what it takes to be a founder?

November 1st, 2009 by admin

(Editor’s note: Serial entrepreneur Steve Blank is the author of Four Steps to the Epiphany. This column originally appeared on his blog.)

When my students ask me about whether they should be a founder or cofounder of a startup I ask them to take a walk around the block and ask themselves the following series of questions:monkey

  • Are you comfortable with chaos? (Startups are disorganized)
  • Are you comfortable with uncertainty? (Startups never go per plan)
  • Are you resilient? (At times you will fail – badly.  How quickly will you recover?)
  • Are you agile? (You may find the real opportunities for your company are somewhere else.  Can you recognize and capitalize on them?)
  • Are you creative? / Can you recognize patterns? (Can you think “out of the box?” Or if not, can you recognize patterns others miss?)
  • Are you Passionate (Is the company/product/customers the most important thing in your life? 24/7?)
  • Are you tenacious (Can you keep going when everyone else gives up? Can you keep giving 200 percent despite all the naysayers who don’t believe in your idea?)
  • Are you articulate? (Can you create a reality-distortion field and have others see and share your vision and passion?)

Even if they answer yes to every question, I remind them that they should be bringing some type of domain expertise (technical or business) to the table.

This is the minimum feature set for founders.

Generic advice given to entrepreneurs assumes that everyone is going to be the founder/co-founder. Yet for every founder there are 10-20 other employees who take the near-equivalent risks in joining an early-stage company.  If you’re not a founder (by choice, timing or temperament,) you may be an early employee or a later stage startup employee.

(And my advice to students who believe they want to do a startup but are unsure if they want to start one, is to join one that’s already raised their first round of funding. Founders know they want to start something.  If you’re unsure, you’ve just decided.)

I believe that founder, early and later stage employees each require different risk/personality profile.

The Early Employee

If you’re a founder/co-founder all the attributes I mentioned above are needed in spades.  However, if you want to join a startup as an early employee (say in the first batch of 25), you can modify the list above.

You still need to be comfortable with chaos and uncertainty, but by this time the major risk of where the first round of funding is coming from is gone.  However, you will be dealing with almost daily change, (new customer feedback/insights from a Customer Development process and technical roadblocks,) as the company searches for a repeatable and scalable business model. This means you still need to have a resilient personality, and be agile.

Early stage employees are “self-starters” and show initiative rather than waiting for other people to tell them what to do or how to do it. (You may be wearing multiple hats in one-day.) You have to be passionate about your work, the company and its mission to be working 24/7. But more than likely you don’t need to be as articulate or creative as the founders (they’re doing the talking, while you’re doing the work.)  And while you do need to be tenacious, you won’t need to be the last man standing if the ship goes down.

The Later Employee

If you want to join a startup as a later employee (say employee number 25-125, before the company is profitable) you can continue to modify the list above.

You still need to be comfortable with chaos and uncertainty.  And you will be dealing with change, but it won’t be the constant daily change the early employees dealt with. By now the company may have found and settled on a repeatable business model. And at this stage of the company rather than everyone doing everything, actual departments may begin to form. However, job responsibilities and organizations will change regularly and you need to feel comfortable in embracing those changes and taking responsibility and ownership.

And you’ll still need to have a resilient and agile personality, as new customer and product opportunities will appear and change your work.  But it won’t be happening daily.  And while you still need to love what you do your passion doesn’t have to extend to tattooing the company’s logo on your arm.

Take the time and think through who you are and what level of challenge you are looking for.

You’re not joining a big company.  Startups are the adventure of a lifetime – but make sure it fits who you are.

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StartUpHire Announces the Fastest Growing Startups

July 27th, 2009 by StartUpHire blog

Those of you who visit regularly, or who subscribe to our automated email alerts, know firsthand that there are thousands of job openings at venture backed companies with hundreds more added each week.  One compelling aspect of the venture ecosystem is that certain companies eventually break ahead of the pack.  Identifying these companies is of course a difficult task; however, hitching your career to a rising star can lead to phenomenally positive results – rewarding work, career advancement, endless opportunity, and financial wealth.  While company financial statements provide the optimal guidance here, this data is unavailable to the public and is rarely shared with employees.   Job creation, on the other hand, is directionally available in the form of job postings which provide the best available public proxy for company growth.

StartUpHire has compiled a list of the fastest growing start-ups in major metropolitan markets based on current job openings and positions available during Q2.  These are the teams which are most actively expanding in today’s recessionary climate, a proxy suggesting strong business models and/or deep conviction that the future is promising.  Here are the fastest growing VC backed companies in select geographies:

In Boston:  Acceleron Pharma, CambridgeSoft, Turbine, ITA Software, Kronos, Senior Whole Health, Zipcar, Gomez, E Ink, Acquia.

In the San Francisco Bay Area inclusive of Silicon Valley:  Tesla Motors, Facebook, Nexant, Trion World Network, Workday, Silver Spring Networks, LinkedIn, Adchemy, Rearden Commerce, Linden Lab.

In the New York Metro Area:  Yodle, Gilt Groupe, Acelero Learning, Undertone Networks, Mimeo.com, Liquidnet Holdings, GAIN Capital Group, Collective Media, Howcast Media, BizBash.

In Southern California:  SpaceX, AccentCare, Demand Media, ReachLocal, MyLife.com, GreatCall, Rubicon Project, LRN, Covario,  eHarmony.

In the Baltimore-Washington Corridor:  SecureInfo, MacroGenics, mindSHIFT Technologies, SPADAC, TV One, Cvent, Positive Energy, Metastorm, SunEdison, Millennial Media.

In Seattle:  Liberty Dialysis, The Cobalt Group, SeaMobile, Genoa Healthcare, WhitePages.com

In Austin:  Bazaarvoice, NetSpend, LifeSize Communications, HomeAway, Molecular Imprints

In Philadelphia:  Catapult Learning, Vitalize Consulting Solutions, Globus Medical, ICG Commerce, Octagon Research Solutions

In Denver-Boulder:  Webroot Software, Pharmaca Integrative Pharmacy, WildBlue Communications, Rally Software, OPX Biotechnologies

In Atlanta:  SecureWorks, Cypress Care, Altea Therapeutics, MFG.com, Purewire

It is truly a great time to explore opportunity at the thousands of venture backed companies which are actively hiring!  Consider leveraging StartUpHire email alerts to put this on autopilot – define your search criteria and elect to be notified either weekly or daily as new positions matching your criteria become available.

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Should Startups Compromise When Hiring?

June 22nd, 2009 by sfredrick

Dharmesh Shah shared some thoughtful insights recently on “Why Startups Should ALWAYS Compromise When Hiring.”  It’s true that any new hire brings a balance of skills, traits, experience, and relationships.  Finding the right balance (or compromise) is the key, and this needs to be done in the context of both the specific job and the broader organization.  For a team to be more effective than the sum of its parts, there must be a constructive mix of different experiences, complimentary skill sets, industry relationships, ages, and personality types.  The requirements matrix for any one job may contain binary criteria like cultural fit, passion, intelligence, integrity, etc.  The subjective criteria will vary by position with ‘relevant experience’ being high on the list, especially for more senior roles.

Time is a scarce resource at emerging growth companies and speed is critical to success – speed to market, the agility to change direction on the fly, and the ability to iterate faster than the incumbents.  To quote Rupert Murdoch, “The world is changing very fast.  Big will not beat small anymore.  It will be the fast beating the slow.” The implication for startup hiring is that there is little to no time available for on-the-job training nor room for the rookie mistakes.  Good ideas and ripe markets get competitive very fast … thanks partly to the flood of venture dollars (but that’s another story.)  While every hiring need will have its own prioritized criteria, relevant experience will invariably rank towards the top of the list.  Experience is not surprisingly well correlated to relationships … and the right relationships provide tremendous leverage and the ability to move that much faster.

From OnStartups by Dharmesh Shah

Startups should hire the best people possible.  But, if you re-read the title, you’ll notice that I’m saying you should always compromise.  Why?  Because there’s no such thing as the absolutely perfect hire along every possible dimension.  If you recruit people that you think were a “no-compromise” hire, you’re deluding yourself with unrealistic expectations.  Nobody’s perfect (and if they are, you probably couldn’t recruit or afford them anyways).

Everyone you bring on is a compromise.  The trick is to compromise on the right things.

Let me explain.  Here are several different attributes or “dimensions of awesomeness” you might seek for your startup recruit:

1.  Passion:  Are they fired-up?

2.  Experience:  Have they done this particular job before?  Did they succeed at it?

3.  Intelligence:  Are they smart?

4.  Academics:  Do they have the right degree?  From the right place?

5.  Hunger:  Are they motivated?  Are they ambitious?

6.  Risk-Tolerance: Can they share the risk?  Or, are they looking to make fair market value?

7.  Scrappiness: Can they get by with little?  Are they resourceful?

8.  Loyalty: Can you get them to commit to your cause?  Will they be fiercely loyal?

Those are just a few I thought of off the top of my head.  It’s by no means a complete list.  I intentionally left out things like “integrity”, because it’s hard to argue in favor of compromising on integrity.  That’s just plain stupid.

But just about all of the attributes listed above could be compromised a little in exchange for something else.  For example, if you were somehow able to grade a recruit along all these dimensions, you might find that someone scores “average” in the academics dimension – but is off-the-charts smart (happens all the time).  So, you might decide that it’s OK for them not to have an ivy league degree.  Or, someone might be so smart, passionate and entrepreneurial – but lacking in experience.  Perhaps that’s OK too.  Or, maybe you really do have to have the absolutely perfect person along every possible dimension, but they’re so good, you’re just not sure you’re going to be able to keep them engaged.  Perhaps you’ll have to compromise on the loyalty front.

The point is, like with just about everything related to startups (and lots of things in life), there are tradeoffs.  You need to figure out which dimensions are absolutely critical (where you will not give), and which ones you’re willing to compromise a little on.  There’s no right answer – it depends on your business, your culture, your values and your instincts.

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Open Source Software – the 12th man!

June 20th, 2009 by admin

Any technology based startup has to face some hard choices when beginning to build their product.  StartUpHire is no different.  When we set out to build the best job site for emerging growth companies, we decided to tap the world of Open Source software to both control costs and to leverage our development team – the proverbial 12th man to borrow a commonly used term for supportive fans at professional football and soccer matches.

"Home of the 12th Man" trademark slo...
Image via Wikipedia

The foundation of our site is the Ubuntu server.  Our servers currently run Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04 Long Term Support server.  On top of that we’re running the Apache web server, our pages are built using the PHP scripting language, and the database is MySQL.  We’ve definitely been impressed with the speed of development and stability of the LAMP software stack.  We work hard to hide it, but there’s some complicated stuff going on when you search for a job.  So far we’ve not had a problem we couldn’t solve quickly and easily with Open Source software.

Of course, what would a modern web site be without a bit of AJAX magic; for that we rely on jQuery for our client side scripting.  If something changes on the page without a page reload, it’s jQuery doing the heavy lifting.  It also helps to have a good tool to keep all your code straight.  Our thanks to the authors of SVN for that.  The blog you’re reading is built on WordPress.  Simple to set up, straightforward to modify and with just enough bells and whistles for what we need.

The best part of all these tools:  no licensing fees, great stability, and frequent improvements.

The development team employs Apple machines for their code editing work, with a healthy mix of editors in use: TextMate, TextWrangler, and vim (yeah, we find that curious too.)

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Daily E-mail Alerts

June 16th, 2009 by admin

StartUpHire users can now subscribe to daily e-mail alerts to be notified of new jobs matching a defined search criteria.  While weekly alerts have been available for some time and are hugely popular, the resounding request was for a daily delivery option.  Fret no more – as of today, you can now wake up to a list of the most recent job openings matching your definition of ideal opportunity!!  You’ll have up to a week’s jump on those who wait for Tuesday delivery of the weekly e-mail alerts.   There are a few important differences.  First, the daily e-mail is abbreviated and contains only new jobs posted in the prior 24 hours.  It does not include a recap of best-fit matches from prior weeks.   Second, if no new jobs matching your search criteria are posted, you will not receive an e-mail.   So… you get a daily e-mail of just the new jobs matching your designated criteria which only arrives when there are jobs matching your criteria.  Simple enough…

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You can elect to receive multiple e-mail alerts in any combination of daily or weekly.  To configure an email alert, simply perform a Job Search then click ‘E-mail Alert’ in the tools palette in the upper left.  Give it a name, select Daily or Weekly, and you’re all set.  E-mail alert settings can be managed from the Search Agents tab.  So get going and configure one or more StartUpHire e-mail alerts to put things on auto-pilot.  There is no better way to keep a pulse on opportunity at emerging growth companies!

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Entrepreneurship creates jobs

May 20th, 2009 by sfredrick

see also: NVCA Partners With StartUpHire to Capture Jobs Data

StartUpHire has compiled a granular listing of venture capital job creation data, the first of its kind.  This is by far the broadest aggregate directory of jobs at venture backed companies in the US, and we expect these numbers to grow as companies not yet represented on the platform post their open positions.

Even in times of economic headwind, venture-backed companies continue to be a vibrant hiring engine which is critical to our nation’s economic health.  These initial statistics provide a snapshot of hiring activity across more than 2000 companies.  The geographic distribution is weighted towards regions receiving the largest share of venture capital dollars; however, jobs exist in 48 states plus Washington, DC.  37% percent of the jobs listed are in California; 15% in the Mid-Atlantic stretching from PA to CT; and 10% in New England, predominantly in Massachusetts.  We all expected California to the lead the pack, but who would have guessed PA-to-CT at number two?

Venture Capital Job Creation Data – courtesy of StartUpHire

Open positions as of May 15, 2009 – - By Region

jobs-by-region

The underlying job descriptions indicate that skill levels for these new jobs span the entire spectrum from machinist to nursing to sales to engineering to cancer research.  It is really quite impressive.  Companies across all sectors are hiring, from software to biotech to semiconductors to cleantech.  The software industry houses a robust 31% of available jobs, followed by 18% in IT services, and 8% in business products and services.  Could it be that these are the least capex intensive industries and thus the best positioned to keep hiring in a challenging economy?

Venture Capital Job Creation Data – courtesy of StartUpHire

Open positions as of May 15, 2009 – - By Industry

job-by-industry

To get ourselves out of this economic dip, it’s going to be startups, small businesses, and venture backed companies that lead the way.  Historically (or at least according to the SBA), small businesses (< 500 employees) have generated 60-80% of net new jobs annually over the past decade.  That intuitively makes sense.  Venture funded companies are the fastest growing subset of this segment so they are vitally important to our economic future.

What do you think?  Did you anticipate this volume of hiring at venture backed companies in today’s economic climate?

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Why a blog?

May 19th, 2009 by sfredrick

If it takes a great team to build a great company … (which is does) … and if the single largest operating expense for most startup companies is labor …(which it is) … then effectively identifying, recruiting, hiring, empowering, compensating, motivating and managing the right individuals becomes a top priority.   Few will disagree; however, emerging growth companies are pressed for time and resources.  There are few venues for discussing best practices and lessons-learned on the HR front for what I contend is a unique and particular type of company … the venture capital backed startup.   Likewise, if you are a career professional with a strong bias for venture-stage companies … which I believe is a sizable audience … there are few venues for gleaning insights and comparing notes on employment in this unique environment.  Everything from what’s it really like to work at a particular company, the nuances of compensation and stock options, how to pick a winner, is this lifestyle for you, tips on work/life balance, insights from the trenches, etc.   Our goal for this blog is to provide a robust venue for frank insights and meaningful discussion.  In the coming weeks, you will hear from multiple perspectives within the venture backed company ecosystem – CEOs and executives, venture investors, HR specialists, recent hires, lawyers, bankers, search professionals, and more.  Have something to contribute?  Drop a note to blog@startuphire.com

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Welcome – Why StartUpHire?

May 11th, 2009 by sfredrick

Welcome to our new blog!  This has been on the list for some time, yet other pressing items have somehow always nudged their way to the top.  That aside, it seems appropriate to kick things off with a brief history on the StartUpHire initiative and how this got started…

The origins of StartUpHire

This initiative traces its roots back some 18 months to a conversation over beers after a local networking event.  Why is it that great ideas and beer so often go hand in hand?  There were a few venture investors present (including me), several CEOs of venture backed companies, and two recent hires to these companies.  The discussion eventually turned to the task of recruiting and hiring.  It’s been some time so I hesitate to quote specific individuals, but here is the gist of the conversation…   The CEOs in the room stressed that hiring is difficult to forecast at emerging growth companies and that when they do have hiring needs, they typically want them filled yesterday!   Things just move at a faster pace.  They lamented that their job postings to the large careers sites (you know the ones) invariably get lost in the noise amidst postings for more established companies with household names.  They also longed for a better way to leverage their individual investors and investor brands.  The fact of the matter is that very often, and certainly in the early stages, investor reputations are a particularly strong calling card and a critical asset to the recruiting process.

The venture investors in the room (including me) all spoke to a desire to list portfolio company jobs on our websites but complained that we had no simple, zero-admin, and cost effective means to do so.  We also longed for a place to point the constant stream of inbound inquiries looking for new employment opportunities.  For most investors, not a week goes by without multiple emails and calls on this front, yet the sad truth is that we each have very limited insight into portfolio company hiring needs, typically just the executive hiring needs at the handful of companies in our personal portfolios.  We almost always lack insight into the broad hiring needs of our portfolio companies beyond the executive level and therefore miss countless opportunities to funnel talent their way.

The recent hires at the table, each of whom had a bias for venture-stage companies, complained of no efficient way to identify these opportunities.   The only alternative being to surf venture firm websites for links to portfolio companies in hopes that those company websites include job openings … which they often don’t because many companies have no easy means to list these.  Those who relish these opportunities find them flat-out difficult to identify.   Simply keeping abreast of new startups is a real challenge.  Identifying the most promising job opportunities in a given industry, geography, and function is really hard.

We did some research and concluded that despite the numerous job boards in existence, there was no destination site with the singular mission of connecting qualified candidates to jobs at venture capital backed companies.

….so we spoke to more companies, investors, and individuals to confirm the need … and a few of us started the ball rolling and pulled together StartUpHire.  We’ve worked hard to eliminate every possible barrier to adoption, and the initial reception has been tremendous!  This is an effort designed to serve the entire industry, and we’re especially thankful to our sponsors.  Please dive in, spread the word, and let us know what you think.

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