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From my years on the NY scene which is filled with non-technical "entrepreneur"-types 5 points: Has been in executive team at a startup before 5 points: Has b
by aditya 16y ago
From my years on the NY scene which is filled with non-technical "entrepreneur"-types
5 points: Has been in executive team at a startup before
5 points: Has been involved in raising capital at a startup before, or is 1-degree from a VC or a few angels (real 1-degree not Twitter/LinkedIn 1-degree)
5 points: Has been in product marketing, biz dev, ad sales at a startup before
5 points: can and will write code
4 points: can get shit done, is well-organized and understands the software development process as opposed to say, selling and shipping widgets
2 points: Has been in product management at a startup before
2 points: Has worked in any biz role at a large tech company and rose to some form of executive post
-5 points: Has an MBA and has only worked at Hedge fund, Consulting company, or iBank
-5 points: Is an idea person and has never shipped a real product.
Your ideal person will score above 10 and close to 20 points on this test.
- mikeleeorg 16y agoThat's a good list. I don't have any particular love for MBAs, but I wouldn't necessarily rule them out, as I've known a rare few who do well in startup environments. (It seems rare though.) But before this gets into yet another MBA debate, let me move on. I think the exact list of traits you'll want will be determined by your particular needs. aditya's list is a great starting point though. Start with this, then modify the points accordingly. For instance, I might give "has never shipped a real product" -10 instead. Another factor to consider is how well the person gets along with you. That might be +10 or more right there. Like myoung8 said, you have to know if you wouldn't mind working and debating and arguing with this person for months on end. Also, this person's connections may play a part, depending on your needs. In the B2B world, business connections can mean a lot. And connected with respect, I mean. There are plenty of schmoozers without any true respect. Finally, I'd recommend checking the person's references. You may not need to do this formally like you're at an interview. But if you can somehow contact this person's former colleagues somehow, that would be helpful. Maybe a LinkedIn check to see if anyone you know might know this person could help. You basically want to find out how others have liked working with him/her.
- anmol 16y agosupport the -10 for consulting + ibank + hedge fund. they're all smart guys, but watch out for the ones who have never built a product OR don't like getting hands dirty. although there are always exceptions, jeff bezos came from de shaw. if this sounds strange to west coast people, at startup networking events in the east coast it is pretty likely you'll run into the 'i've done my gig at mcK/harvard mba and the next step of my career is a CEO position so let me find my awesome tech cofounder' type of person.
- ig1 16y agoJoshua (of delicious) and Jimbo (of Wikipedia) both have ibanking backgrounds as well I believe.
- krav 16y agoGreat list. For me the last two points would be show stoppers. If you can't code (and I'm one of those, btw), then your driving a startup to success is significantly dependent on your level of experience in shipping products, doing sales, iterating, working working working. One can learn to do this on the job, but do you want to pay for the mistakes they're bound to make the first time around?