When startups start taking off, the founders usually can't tell what's changed. It's some combination of all the random things they did to make it take off, but it's hard to say which ones.
Nervous about joining an early stage startup? Let's talk about risk. There are two types of risk: job risk and career risk. People think they are the same. They aren't. They are very different.
You need 2 types of people to keep early-stage startups from stagnating:
- someone who’ll shamelessly sell the product before it’s fully ready to be sold
- someone who’s embarrassed by this and will push to improve the product faster