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Koo's Founder on - Appearing for a startup interview Make a list of startups you’re generally interested in. If you’re risk averse but still want to work at a startup, try and choose a startup that’s gone beyond their Series B. The risk is usually fairly low at a Series C stage and beyond. If you like the product building phase and are brave enough to deal with a lot of ambiguity, join as early as possible. Read about the startup and the space. Look up articles related to the startup on Google and videos on YouTube. Go through the startup's website, blog and their social media. Get a better idea about their vision. Once you've built your confidence around working here, put together a detailed note that you can email to the founders. Here's what the note should have: Your understanding of the startup's vision. Your understanding of their core problems related to your function. Challenges you think they'll face. Your solutions to these problems and challenges. Details these out as much as possible with very well thought practical ideas. No founder likes reading superficial or theoretical thoughts. Any other ideas you have for them. Don’t try to nitpick at stupid errors you find on their site / app. Every startup is a WIP and the folks working there are aware of anything you plan to highlight. If there’s something they can do better, just mention it as a side note but don’t be critical of what they have. Keep your note positive. If you're applying for a senior role, make your note more granular. Once you've prepared this note, find the founder's email ID (there are many tools such as Lusha etc to find anyone's email with their linkedin profile) and mail this document along with a clear intent to work with them. Founders like to hear from folks who are passionate about their startup. You should get a response in most cases. If you don’t hear from the founder, try and email someone else in management or the HR head. If emails fail you, try connecting with these folks on linkedin and send your interest and your note in the DM once you’re connected. In case you've been called for an in person meeting, ask them if there's any assignment they'd like you to work on. When you're there, reiterate stuff you wrote in the email. Ask them if they'd like you to take them through your note again. Answer questions they ask you. Ask questions about the startup, their vision, their plans, team structure, their expectations and challenges they'd like you to handle. Don't ask questions related to compensation, work weeks etc. Those are very big turn offs for anyone working at a startup - gives them the wrong picture about you. Save those questions for HR if you're really concerned. IMHO, don't be too hung up about compensation. Even if they can't pay you as per your expectations, remember that you'll finally get there once they raise funds in the future. If all goes well, it's a matter of time. You can ask for ESOPs to balance the cash shortfall and for the risk associated with the stage you’re joining at. When asking for ESOPs, just ask for ESOPs as per their framework for the rest of the company. You can evaluate the future value of these ESOPs by understanding what the exercise price is based on. If it's as per the startup's last valuation, then your ESOPs will be worth the future valuation minus the dilution the startup will have in future rounds. Let’s assume you’ve got ESOPs worth 10 lakhs as per the last round’s valuation and the startup was valued at $10 million. If you believe that this company can be worth $500 million and can get there with 2 more fund raises, then this is what your stocks will be worth (assume 30-45% dilution with 2 more fund raises - let’s assume a 40% dilution for this example): 10 lakhs x 50 ($500 million / $10 million) x 60% (dilution from 100%-40%). That’s about 3 crores. Not bad right? The earlier you join, the higher the upside and risk too. I always recommend getting ESOPs over cash when you work at a startup, even at the cost of foregoing some cash component. It aligns you to the company's interest. They understand that you're serious. It gives you a good upside when the company does well. Which is one of the important reasons for working at a startup, apart from feeling like your contribution really matters. Be committed to your journey at a startup unless you're faced with circumstances you can't make peace with. The more time you spend, the greater the learnings. While there are hard learnings from functional work, there are many soft learnings like patience, loyalty etc that you learn from spending longer periods of time at any workspace. I don't recommend hopping around jobs for salary jumps. It reflects poorly on your resume as you get senior. Full book link : - https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0D8Z514ZR BY - Mayank Bidawatka