Walking on the street is a risk.

Driving a car is a risk.

I get it -- everything is a risk. Even more reason to start a company and give it a shot. You may get struck by lightning tomorrow.

I'm not such a "ra ra" kind of guy to say, "everyone should go start a company tomorrow, and you'll all win." But on the flip side for those people that want to take a shot - it's the time to do it. The "risks" that you think exist, around money and failure aren't really risks. Even "lost time" isn't in my mind a risk. Don't get caught (as I mention in another comment) running a zombie company though...

I wish I had "youthful naivete" ... although plenty of people have said I "act quite young." Does that count? :)

Sunk time is an issue. And I have also railed against what I describe as "zombie startups" that outlast their welcome or usefulness. I've been caught in those. And I lost a lot of time. There's a risk in knowing when NOT to quit...

My post is definitely specific to tech startups, and particularly tech founders (developers.) Restaurant owners = completely different story, for which I have no experience. But I can imagine "getting a job in the restaurant biz" is considerably different than getting a job in the tech space.

The use of "no risk" is admittedly a bit over the top ... creative license if you will.

A business plan should not be a requirement for an accelerator, certainly not a traditional one. A Lean Canvas on the other hand would make perfect sense.

The intention isn't to get detailed financials necessarily. "Profitable" is a pretty good indicator of some level of success. The issue is more with pre-revenue or pre-profit startups that are "burning cash" and have X amount of time to live. That's important data for an employee.

Sure. I think what I'm getting at is that the questions seem to implicitly assume anyone applying to a start-up is looking at a company that is (a) externally funded, and (b) not yet profitable. There's a lot of hero worship around here about getting early stage funding and Ramen profitability, but in the real world there are plenty of other possibilities.

Yes, the questions are targeted to a specific type of startup, although not necessarily one with huge funding.

But the questions don't change drastically in other types of startup either. Maybe some of the financials do, but questions about founders, business fundamentals, metrics that are focused on, how employees are assessed, etc. remain true regardless of whether it's a funded startup, bootstrapped, revenue generating, profitable or otherwise.

Most of the things you mentioned remain true for any prospective employer, though, whether it's any form of start-up or already established. Only the financial questions from the original set were particularly start-up specific, and those are the ones where I see a bias in the article, because a different approach would be appropriate depending on the nature of the start-up.

Thanks for the mention of Standout Jobs, I appreciate it. Startup jobs isn't our focus necessarily, but we do have a lot of great startup companies using the product. And we're not a startup job board; we'd much prefer to turn every startup's career site into its own destination site.

Gotta love the meter maids.

And the unions.

Combine them and that's quite the powerful force. chuckle

So silly but sad at the same time...

From what I've read and seen in the Valley and Boston, I agree 100% with you - but that's why I thought it was interesting to put it up here for discussion.

I apologize if the submission title is misleading but the message is still valuable. It's not dissimilar to Paul Graham's speech / essay, "How Not to Die."

His message, "You will doubt yourself. But don't give up."

I wasn't as eloquent or elaborate, but still a similar message. The intention wasn't to linkbait anyone with a misleading headline.

Looks like it. Still, something I had to write from my own perspective working at the center of the Montreal startup scene (or trying to!) and comparing that to the Valley.