Ask HN: How do you find early stage startups to join
18gavino78/22/2025, 5:00:04 PM
Curious how others find early stage startups to join. Thinking first engineer that a startup is hiring to maybe first 20 employees.
Comments (7)
random3 · 2h ago
I think the most relevant is through your network, mainly because it’s generally a trust matter on both ends. It’s best when the deal is a known quantity vs looking over “who’s hiring monthly HN posts”.
I had 10-15 people i was working with (not all employed) at my last startup and they all came through my network either directly (ex colleagues) or through trusted parties.
Again it’s mostly a trust thing more than anything.
I think a good strategy is to get close to the kind of startups you care about without (before) direct intent to join. It’s easy to hang out (or at least it used to be) through various events, meetups or co-working places.
Many startups I didn’t join and could have been good, I’ve met through open-source (Hadoop, HBase, Mesos, etc.) these are companies like Cloudera, DataBricks etc. when they were tiny. I still miss that crowd, years later.
So it’s mostly a matter of being close to what’s happening, able to filter and ready to jump when opportunity arises.
Just do the stuff in the same space, either by aligning your current work or shipping hobby projects, writings, opinions on social media. You will quickly “map” the people in the area you are interested in and your only task is getting on their radar. Then you can expect them to reach out. This solves all the tediousness of cold outreach or interviews, etc. Worked well for me for the last two decades.
goyagoji · 1h ago
I'm curious as to why startup would be a goal specifically vs the job itself at any company? Lifestyle, company size, career growth, equity, something else?
UncleOxidant · 1h ago
You have a lot more control in an early stage startup vs a later stage one where lots of design decisions have already been made before you arrived and you're kind of stuck with them. If you like having an influence on the design of the product, tools, even implementation languages the earlier you get in, the more influence you have.
UncleOxidant · 58m ago
In the four early stage startups I've gotten into:
1) Found it through an agency (this was in the late 80s, though).
2,4) I knew someone who was already working there.
3) I knew someone who knew someone who worked there.
So basically through your network.
dtnewman · 2h ago
Look for startups that interest you and then email the founders. Follow up every two months until you hear a hard no. Things are absolute chaos at an early startup and it's rare that the job board (if even there at all) is up to date.
I had 10-15 people i was working with (not all employed) at my last startup and they all came through my network either directly (ex colleagues) or through trusted parties.
Again it’s mostly a trust thing more than anything.
I think a good strategy is to get close to the kind of startups you care about without (before) direct intent to join. It’s easy to hang out (or at least it used to be) through various events, meetups or co-working places.
Many startups I didn’t join and could have been good, I’ve met through open-source (Hadoop, HBase, Mesos, etc.) these are companies like Cloudera, DataBricks etc. when they were tiny. I still miss that crowd, years later.
So it’s mostly a matter of being close to what’s happening, able to filter and ready to jump when opportunity arises.
A lot of VCs also have job boards, or they will list their portfolio companies and you can reach out directly:
https://jobs.a16z.com/jobs
https://jobs.sequoiacap.com/jobs
https://kindredventures.com/portfolio
etc
So basically through your network.
Source: I work at an early stage startup.