Jobs at Startups -or- in smaller companies

News media is ripe with positive stories about winning startups. Over the years we heard about many successful startup companies that have grown and flourished. If you are working at an enterprise, it likely started life as a small company sometime in the past. The nice thing about startups are that they are filled with energy, adventure, and possibility to grow bigger. In contrast the enterprises offer the most stability, broader array of roles, and possibly less adventure. Enterprises compensate much heavier than a typical startup or an early stage company would. At least in software and cloud services world, enterprise companies compensate in the 100s of thousands of $$ and even in small digit millions for a very experienced professional. In startups easily such compensation (cash component) will likely be at 1/5th to 1/20th the amount.

Recently I had been inquired by many friends about what is the environment like to work in a small company after my 20+ years of life in a big company. It is very different. Every day I expect to have a new adventure or surprise. Every day I expect to talk with a customer or a prospect or both. Every day I find numerous problems to solve – both big and small. And every day there is both a dream about a better tomorrow and challenge about handling the workload 🙂

One thing that will standout for anyone attempting to move from big company to smaller startup is that the compensation levels are dramatically different. Over the few months when folks had inquired about making such a move, I had been descriptive in answering the differences. Instead of using up time for both the candidate and the prospective startup founders / hiring managers, it is useful to gain their expectations. So for the US market I inquire about a candidates expectation on the following scale. Obviously there is equity involved in all forms of engagement, equity / options go up as one moves up the scale here.

The levels of comfort are: