Took a suggestion from a commenter to blog about the other side of working at a startup, that is, the positives of it; I wrote this late, late, late last night…fueled by Diet Cokes and Japanese strawberry gummy candies. I don’t really know the seedy underside of working for someone else in a startup, but I was able to round up some friends (and friends of friends) who do. I mean, we all know that working at a startup is exciting with a capital E!!! You know what I mean by excitement, right? “You get to work in a dynamic, fun and fast-paced environment!” Sweaty palms, ever-changing circumstances, not knowing if your next paycheck will be your last, doing things outside of your hired role, oh yes, this is VERY exciting. Hoping to glean some info on how to manage employees if ever I had enough money to do so; I gathered some interesting comments by plying these folks with some candy and my undivided attention. Quoted for truth:
“Yea, the founder thinks he knows everything. Even how to do my job.”
“My boss is really flexible; he changes his mind every few minutes.”
“I’m so happy I’m helping another person make their dreams come true. At $30,000 a year.”
“I’m the number 3 employee of the company. But I think I’m going to need health insurance soon.”
“We have office space. It just happens to be in the basement of my boss’s house.”
Ok, ok, sounds pretty bad, doesn’t it? But, the people I interviewed were smart and full of potential. Knowing that, the people who hired them - the CEOs most likely, are smart people too. And working with smart people is never a bad thing. On that note, let’s discuss the pros of working at a startup. You want to know how a business works? You want to see ideas come to life before your very eyes? Did you ever wonder what “business development” meant? Want to be a contributor instead of a cog? Well, working at a startup gives you that opportunity. That is, if you want it. The phrase “baptized by fire” comes to mind. It takes a very courageous and flexible person to weather the ups and downs of a startup. Maybe the company doesn’t go anywhere. Maybe the 0.25% equity stake you own means 0.25% of zero dollars next week. But imagine your next job interviews. Imagine not lying about how much you contributed and learned working at a startup.
Every company needs resourceful and tenacious employees. And startup employees have that times 10. You’re middle name is probably “Versatile”. Companies now want multi-talented employees who have some business sense and financial know-how. And you have that knowledge, because you probably had 50 different responsibilities. That, or you shared the same desk as the CFO. Do you know how to put the company first? Probably, because almost everyday in a startup is about survivability. So maybe the company went out of business - what did you take away from that? You were directly hired by the CEO (likely). In a way, you’ve already been vetted. Whether you were the technical lead or receptionist/payroll/cheerleader - hiring managers know that startups put tremendous energy into finding their first employees. They want very, very good people (for very, very low pay). But think of all the money you saved working from home because there’s no office space yet.
Conclusion: I definitely have to advise most job seekers who have some flexibility with their finances AND nerves of steel to give working at a startup a shot. Especially if you’ve always had a bit of the entrepreneurial bug - you’ll learn things they don’t teach you in business school, guaranteed. The best question to ask might simply be, “What is a typical day like?” Oh, and you might want to hang around for a day to see how things actually work before you jump in. But it will probably be worth it.

It’s 80 degrees regularly now. Wii Fit is sold out everywhere. Maybe one has something to do with the other, heh. Microsoft and Yahoo are still two separate entities. We still don’t know have a Democratic nominee (although that might change tonight).
Me, I’m just working on a Blood Elf rogue on Cho’gall at the moment. But shouldn’t you be building the website?! Why are you keeping us waiting? you may ask. Well friends, it’s not just me here at mmochi.
Here is the rest of the team, who’s going to create the awesomest gaming social network you ever did see.

I’m Tony and have been a gamer for over 20 years, mostly on the console side. (My PC gaming experience is mostly C64, Oregon Trail and older stuff like Doom, Duke Nukem, and Starcraft).

It’s tough building something like this from the ground up but we knew there was an unfulfilled need in the community. Here are some of the things I think about during the day:

Information gathering because knowing is half the battle
Blogs are quickly becoming the fastest and easiest way to keep up with news.
Thanks to Google reader, we can easily RSS the relevant info out there on the blogosphere. Some favorites include: Mashable, TechCrunch, Signals vs Noise and of course, all of my videogame feeds.
A great book we read when getting started is, The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki. I highly recommend it to anyone looking to create a startup and pursue their dreams.

Content and Design
This is by far the toughest aspect of starting a web site. How do we get started? Should we start with designs and build features from there or vice versa? What technology should be used? Should we tighten up the graphics on level 3? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ-QSJmEgHU” lol but seriously, we have gone through more redesigns (and dunkin donuts coffee) than you can imagine. We figure some of our pages may have been redone 4-5 times by now. Feature creep also comes into play when designing a site of such scale and we’ve had to axe many features or save them for later revisions. We may scan a few early designs later so we can see the evolution. A great resource we found for designing for the web is Getting Real by 37 Signals. A quick read that’s sure to get you started on the right track.

Well, i’m off but will post some random updates from time to time.

-Tony

And this is Adam, our graphic designer, who hails from Maryland. And although his academic background is in something that rhymes with Memistry, you’d never know it by his wicked designs.

Hey guys,
My name is Adam and I¹m the designer here at mmochi. I am primarily responsible for the little happy faces smiling back at you from the front-page and the general look and feel of the site. Although always a gamer, I never thought that this would be a marketable skill until I saw a craigslist posting with the phrase “must be able to make graphics consistent with video game aesthetics.” This certainly peaked my interest, I applied with all the assurances of my geekyness I could provide and I¹ve been working with Tilo and Tony ever since! The cute little guys of course are meant to be animated mochis which are those awesome Japanese rice treats that often come filled with ice cream or red bean paste (or salt, if you have an abusive older sister.) It was just too good a name to pass up.
So that¹s it for now, anyone have a favorite mmochi?

-Adam

PS - I will also be posting pics of these guys on our mmochi flickr pic roll! (lower left hand corner). Don’t forget to RSS the blog posts so you don’t miss anything!

I remember talking to my friends about mmochi (seems like a lifetime ago), and they would say…”Yea, sounds like you wanna build a startup”. Startup? Did you just take 2 verbs and make it into a noun? What is that, another word for “business”? No, I quickly learned (but not quickly enough…never quickly enough!), that building a startup, which evidently enough, IS another word for a business, condensed under 5 words is kind of like: having a baby. Minus the fluids. But omg, that process is for another post.

ps - Run on sentences ftw.

So one of the first steps to building that startup? Find a partner. How? What can I offer? How do I explain how not fun it’s going to be and at the same time, get really motivated and smart people to join me in this struggle? Then I ran across this article all full of truths AND roflcopters and had to share. I couldn’t get permalinks and trackbacks to work so here’s the entire article (where you can read the comments too), QFT.

“Welcome to the first day of your new startup job! We’re so excited that you’ve decided to be part of our venture. You’re going to find that compared to your old job at a big, stodgy corporation, a startup is a totally different world.

To get you acclimated to the change, let me walk you through the perks and benefits of your new job while you settle in.

We have a Premium Coffee Service

Oh, you want to know where the coffee is?

We have an amazing service that offers premium coffees and a full assortment of cakes and snacks. It’s called Starbucks, and it’s conveniently located two blocks down the street. They aren’t around as early or late as we are, but if you can use the service, I would highly recommend it.

Your New Computer is Already Configured

No need to worry about setting up your new computer – you already own it. It’s the laptop you brought from home. The great news is that you won’t need to waste any time configuring your email client or figuring out your new bookmarks.

What’s even better is you are free to take it home with you and work throughout the entire weekend like the rest of us are going to.

Your Phone Number is Easy to Remember

In addition to your computer, your direct phone line is already set up. As it happens, you already know the number because it’s the same as your cell phone number. Why bother adding additional lines with money we don’t have when you have a perfectly good phone on you at all times?

You Now have Three Assistants

Maybe your last company thought you only needed one full-time assistant to handle your inbound calls, your calendar and your entire travel schedule. At our startup, we’ve got three. Their names are Outlook, iPhone, and Expedia.

Between the three of them they will handle all of the work that you thought only one full-time person could handle before. They will always be available to you and will never complain. Feel free to use them as much as you see fit.

You Set Your Own Travel Budget

No need to fill out any requisitions for travel or any expense reports. We’re too innovative to worry about all that paperwork. In fact, you can pretty much tell us what your travel budget is going to be. After all, it’s dictated by how much cash you have in your wallet and how much gas you have in your car. Assuming those two are full, you can go as far as they will take you.

Take as much Vacation as You Want

Not only do we not worry about travel budgets, we don’t even budget for vacation. Sure, your last company made you count the number of sick days you had available and kept you from taking as much time as you really needed. We’re the exact opposite – you can take off as much time as you need and never worry about it.

While you’re planning that vacation, remember that we’re working Monday through Sunday from sunrise to sundown. None of us have taken time off in the last three years, but we’d be thrilled to see you take a two-week siesta to relax after you’ve been hard at work for three months in a row.

Our Hours are Super Flexible

Aside from not tracking vacation, we don’t even track when you come or go. Maybe your last boss was looking at his watch when you showed up fifteen minutes late. Not us! We don’t care what time you show up or what time you leave. So long as you’re working every waking moment of every day of the week, the hours are totally up to you.

We don’t care if you come in on Sunday at 8:00 AM or 1:00 PM. We’re just so focused on getting this startup off the ground we can’t worry about things like normal business hours. Some of us haven’t slept in the last day and a half so we’ve lost track of time altogether.

You Call the Shots

We’re not about telling you what to do. That’s why we hired you, because we knew you were tired of having your boss lead you around like a puppy. At our new startup, you get to make your own schedule and call all of the shots. We hired you because we knew you wanted this type of responsibility, and now you’ve got it!

I’m sure by now you’re thinking this is simply nirvana. Not only do you get to run your own show, set your own schedule and enjoy all of the perks of a startup, you also get the opportunity to strike it rich with your new stock options.

Just don’t forget that you really aren’t going to get paid in cash this week. Or next week. Or next month. Isn’t a startup great?”