All other things being equal I'd rather have an employee who had a personal following of the right kind. This is because it shows: - They care enough about wh

All other things being equal I'd rather have an employee who had a personal following of the right kind. This is because it shows: - They care enough about what they do to do it in their off hours. - They do it well enough to gather some respect. - "Marketing" is much easier, and much less distasteful, when it can be done by and to people who respect each other about things they genuinely like. And start ups need all the marketing help they can get. There are only a few people out there who have skill sets that are so unique that there isn't someone just like them who also has a valuable on-line reputation. I'm certainly not a special snowflake, and I'm a domain expert in three fields. I meet people who are better than me all the time. Are you sure you are one of the ~500 people in the world who are so good that only their specialist knowledge matters? Or should you think that every asset you can bring, no matter how seemingly unrelated to your job description, adds something to a start up that may help them succeed.