Today’s article comes to us from @dharmesh via @cofounderslab through Twitter.  OnStartups.com has a good article on viewing the core group of a startup as a small tribe.  John Greathouse explains:

Tribes and startups thrive when labor is efficiently divided. Long before Meyers met Briggs, people in tribal communities migrated to those roles which best suited their personalities, proclivities and skills. The key roles in tribes and startups are identical: Hunter, Skinner, Shaman, Chief and Tribal Elder.

Each member of the tribe has a significant and indispensable role to play.  Mr. Greathouse elaborates on the role played by each member, and why they are key to the success of the group.  Obviously, this really applies to startups that have reached a maturity which allows for all these roles to be filled.  Prior to that point, understanding the roles, and adjusting to fill the gaps is recommended.

As a bonus, Mr. Greathouse has created video, if you learn better from watching someone talk rather than reading.

OnStartups is a great resource for further learning about startups and for finding resources about startups.

We’ll admit, we’re biased toward good articles which also mention using our site. Don Rainey wrote a post for VentureBeat some time ago about how to go about finding a startup to intern with.  We believe that good advice hasn’t changed much in the interim.  In the article he lists several places to consider looking for an opportunity: StartUpHire.com, job fairs, university technology transfer offices, and startup incubators.

Here’s the great thing:  if you really want to work as an intern for a startup, you’re going to have to find them.  Mr Rainey writes

The problem is: Startups often don’t have the resources or formal programs of larger companies to recruit interns, so candidates have to find them. And due to their smaller size and relative youth, finding the startups in your area isn’t always easy.

If you’ve made the leap to want to find a startup to intern for, chances are good you’re exactly what the startups want.  They need someone who will take ownership, who will take the initiative.  As an example, Mr. Rainey quotes Tim O’Shaugnessy of LivingSocial:

Our interns own projects on day one — we want to see if they can run with it and move the needle. We’ve hired dozens of interns, many of whom have now become some of our best managers and employees.

It’s January, and we know from history now is the time to start looking for that summer internship.  Go find them, and get going on your startup adventure.

Today’s post is as useful to the hiring manager at a startup as it is to those looking to get hired. DJ Patil has a post on TechCruch on focusing on talent. He suggests three questions a startup should be focusing on when considering a new hire. If you’re looking to get hired, you should probably be focusing on these same things, and be ready to address them.
We’ll give you the questions he asks, but you’ll need to read the article to find out why they’re important:

1. Would we be willing to do a startup with you?
2. Can you “knock the socks off” of the company in 90 days?
3. In four to six years, will you be doing something amazing?

Why should you listen to Mr. Patil? He

… is the Chief Data Scientist at Greylock Partners. Previously he was the Chief Product Officer of Color Labs. He previously worked for LinkedIn as their Chief Scientist and Chief Security Officer and eBay as their Director of Strategy, Analytics, and Product.

David Biesel has an awesome post on when you should join a startup. Your first thought might be that joining a startup that has gotten a first or second round of investment would be your best bet. Not so, he advises.

He breaks it down like this:

I believe that there are three opportune times to join a startup:

1. As early as possible (or as you can stomach).
2. When the train has already left the station.
3. When there is a truly unique ability to learn, collaborate with specific people, or work in a special situation.

In other words, get in as early as you can in order to reap the most benefits from the risk of a startup. In fact, he even suggests you to consider founding one! If you can’t stand that, then join a startup that’s already hit its stride. You’ll get valuable experience in a startup, and later will have that air of success to trade on. Third option is a special one, and you really need to read his article to understand why.

This article was the first in a series, and the entire series is highly recommended.

Mr. Beisel is a cofounder and Partner at NextView Ventures.

Did you know that StartUpHire lets you search our job listings by company stage? Select the Advanced Search link from our search page, then select Stage from the dropdown. As an example, here is a search showing all jobs at companies in the product development stage.

Today we have a guest post from Jenna Smith.

Let’s assume that you’re trying to get hired at a given company. You have a good education, a few years of experience, and consider yourself a smart person. You have an understanding of the company’s industry and you believe yourself to interview well. You may not be a shoe-in for the position, but you’re certainly a good candidate.

If you were looking for a job at a large firm, these above listed credentials would help tremendously towards putting you on that path. You’d be best advised to stick to your guns, tout your credentials, shake the interviewer’s hand firmly, and hope for an ounce of luck. But things are different if this company happens to be a startup. Sure, having a great resume is certainly highly important, as is being able to profess knowledge of the vocation you seek. Startups will certainly consider these qualities. At the same time, though, a startup interviewer has one other concern in mind, a concern that is shared by large firms but to a much lesser degree: how will this applicant change the culture of our team? How committed will they be? What unique skills can they bring?

Asking these questions is essential to the startup. At a larger business, a bad hire will amount to little more than some money wasted and a quick termination. But at a startup, each and every hire has a marked impact on the business’ culture, not to mention on its future success. Each and every hire needs to bring a talent that they can do better than the rest of the team – and one about which they are passionate.

If you plan to interview at a quality startup, having some specific talents in mind is probably key. These talents should not include some that are regularly espoused at interviews, such as hard work, attention to detail, or responsibility. Moreover, you don’t want to verbalize this talent to your interviewer. Instead, you want to implicitly focus on it, draw circles of experience around it, and more or less show them that you possess it.

So what kind of talents do I have in mind here? When a startup is just getting off the ground, the ones that ultimately turn out most successful have some combination of the following personality types: the charismatic business leader, the dedicated numbers guy (or gal), the inexhaustible creative type, and the gregarious networker. Astute startup managers realize the strengths of having such an assortment, and, consequently, they often look for these types of people when sitting down for an interview.

So ask yourself: what kind of person am I? Can I fit one of these sought-after startup identities? And can I display that in an interview? If you can, you’ve gone a long way towards boosting your chances and landing yourself a job.

Jenna Smith is a journalism student at Saint Louis University. Upon graduation, she hopes to travel the world while producing compelling content for the masses. When she isn’t writing, you can find Jenna with her nose in a book, or her headphones in to block out the rest of the world. Enjoy!

Tony Wright has an excellent insider’s post on what to expect from that offer you’re considering from a startup. It’s from way back in 2008 (an age on the internet, of course), but it’s still worth reading.
He starts with a wakeup call:

Employees with decent salaries and options will almost NEVER get rich in a liquidity event. The people who might get rich with startup equity are the founders and the investors (not coincidentally, the people who took significant risks).

That shouldn’t be news, but it’s worth a reminder. He goes on to talk about what options are and what they’re worth:

The best way to look at options are as a high-risk investment– it’s important to look at the cost of the investment, the chance that the investment will “hit”, the likely magnitude of the return on investment, and the percentage you’ll likely have in your pocket at the time of a liquidity event.

By the way, a liquidity event is when stock is turned in to actual cash. This could be an IPO or a buyout from another company, as two examples.

And the final bucket of water on your dream of getting rich quick:

Obviously, all of these perks are really only perks for people who see themselves working on/in startups in the future… For people like this, the $10k price tag (when you roll in the high-risk investment op) is a great investment. For folks who are just chasing the idea that they are going to get rich taking decent-paying jobs with post-funding startups, they are in for a long series of disappointments.

However, if you understand what you’re getting in to, it’s potentially a good investment; go read the post, and you’ll understand what we mean.

Mr Wright definitely has the foundation for giving advice on Internet based startups.