Convincing People to Work at Your Startup
+ What You Should Do Before You Start a Startup, Helping You Validate Your Startup Idea
Hi there,
There are only four more months left until 2023 ends, which is to say, where did the time go?
In our last newsletter, we announced the Summer 2023 batch; fast forward to today, we're now only a month away from Demo Day. In preparation, we kicked off Fundraising Bootcamp and the founders are working hard on their pitches. We're excited to see their progress over the next few weeks.
We're also equally excited about the content we have in this newsletter. In this edition, we're sharing with you…
How founders should convince people to work at their startup
Live investor reactions to startup pitches
What you should do before starting a startup
As always, let us know what you liked (or disliked) about this month's newsletter - we're always happy to hear what you have to say.
- June
Convincing People to Work at Your Startup
by Hsu Ken Ooi, Managing Partner at Iterative
Convincing people to work at your startup in Southeast Asia (SEA) is very different from San Francisco (SF). In SF, you don’t have to convince them they should work at a startup. In fact, most people are in SF so they can work at a startup. Instead, you need to convince them they should work at your startup. In SEA, you have to do both! You need to convince them that they should work at a startup and that they should work at your startup.
Fortunately, the strategy is similar in both cases. The key is to not compete on the things you can’t win and focus on the things you can.
Don’t Compete On…
Here are the things that, as a startup, you can’t compete in.
Salary – Your startup won’t be able to pay as much as the larger companies. Frankly, you shouldn’t even try.
Stability – Your startup will never have the stability and security of larger companies. That’s the nature of a startup.
Prestige – Your startup will never have the prestige (recognizable name, fancy office, etc.) of larger companies.
Instead, Compete On…
Here are the things that, as a startup, you should compete on.
Growth – Your startup will give people an opportunity to grow and learn at a significantly faster rate. At a large company, they’ll be responsible for a small part of a big thing. At a startup, they’ll be responsible for a big part of a small thing. Turns out you learn much more in the latter than the former and if that small thing becomes a big thing, your learning and career become a rocket ship.
Financial Upside – If your startup becomes a large company, it will make a life-changing amount of money. They will likely never have to think about money again. This is admittedly a tougher sell in SEA so we spend a considerable amount of time educating people on how to think about this. That includes explaining how equity works and making a spreadsheet for their equity so they can see how much it could be worth.
Meaningful Experience – “It’s a job” is something I hear from people at large companies and almost never from people who work at a startup. I think working at a startup is a more meaningful experience for 3 reasons. First, you have more autonomy and responsibility which makes people feel more ownership and pride over their work. Second, you’re working on a smaller team so you have deeper relationships with the other people on the team. Third, you have a greater share of the financial outcome. At a large company, if the company does well you might benefit if you have stock options but if you don’t, it makes no difference to you.
The Worst Care Scenario – If someone is good at what they do and working at a large company, they can likely get an equivalent job at any time. If that's true, their current situation (working at a large company) is their worst-case scenario. Even if your startup fails, they can always get the job they have now again. There’s no significant downside. At best, you get everything else on this list. At worst, you go back to the job you have now. This has worked so well for me in the past, that it’s now my go-to closing pitch. I’ll say everything else on this list first and end with this.
Hopefully, this is convincing… but what if they are still not convinced? Assuming you have communicated these points and your startup well, you should stop trying to convince them. A lot of people think they want to work at a startup but a surprisingly few actually do. If these points are compelling, they’re probably the type of person you want. If not then they likely are not.
I often talk to founders who are killing themselves trying to convince someone from a large company to work at their startup. I’ve never done that. I make my case and then tell them, if you’re the type of person who wants to be part of a startup, you’ll join. If you aren’t that person, you’ll stay.
You are what you do. Not what you think you are.
Ideas from Iterative
Live Investor Reactions to Real Startup Pitches
Founders sent in their pitches, and Hsu Ken reviewed them and gave actionable feedback - live and unfiltered.
Fundraising is often a closed-door conversation, which makes it tough for founders to learn. It's made even tougher as rejections rarely come with feedback on how to improve. It's why we hosted this event - to help with the feedback loop and to educate through concrete examples.
Watching this recording of the event is almost like being a fly on the wall on what investors are thinking when founders pitch. Watch the recording to…
Get Actionable Feedback - Even though the companies who pitch to us aren't from the same industry or market, there are still best practices applicable to all founders. Watch 8:01 and 20:05 on Hsu Ken's suggestion to improve the Vision and Competition section, respectively.
Learn What Investors Look For - Throughout the video, Hsu Ken shared what he was expecting to see and suggested what should (and shouldn't) go into the pitch.
Pick Up on Investor Reactions - Hsu Ken didn't watch any of the pitch videos prior, so his reactions are genuine.
Watch here.
What You Should Do Before You Start a Startup
There’s nothing that will fully prepare you for becoming a founder (that’s part of the fun!). But there are things you can do that will help you prepare for the journey. In this video, Hsu Ken gives practical advice on how to prepare and shares more on...
What does starting a startup even mean (And how do you know when to quit your job?)
What the first 3 months of starting a startup look like
The 5 things to do before you start a startup
Watch here.
Spotlight on Founders
Congratulations Goro on Their $1M Raise in Pre-Seed
Congratulations Robert Hoving, Andryan Gouw and team GORO on the $1M raise! 🚀🚀🚀
We're thrilled to be a part of their journey and can't wait to see how they'll transform the property ownership and investing landscape in Southeast Asia. Read more here.
Goro is an Indonesian proptech firm they're on a mission to democratise property investing. Join the community here.
In the Loop
Apply to Iterative
Iterative invests up to $500K, but we think our biggest value lies in how we help your company. Here are three things we help with:
1. Guidance
Often, the limiting factor to a company's growth isn't capital but the founders. Therefore the founder's rate of improvement is directly correlated to the company's growth. That's what we help with. We help you prioritise, avoid pitfalls, teach you how to think about your current challenges and prepare you for the challenges you will soon face.
2. Community
We designed Iterative to be the best founder community in Southeast Asia. Specifically, this means a community of founders in various industries, sectors, countries, and company stages that help each other. As challenges and questions come up, it's likely someone in the community can help.
3. Investors
Some founders are good at raising money, and some are not. What's surprising is raising money is a skill you can get significantly better at if you know how. We will likely increase your average outcome simply by teaching you how to fundraise.
If you're a founder and working on something, we'd love to talk to you. Apply here.
Your Startup Idea, How We'd Validate
Join Hsu Ken as he hears startup ideas in real-time and shares how he'd validate their viability.
Here's what you can expect:
Validation in Action – See how an experienced founder considers startup ideas and breaks down the steps for validation live.
Learn Validation Methods – Discover techniques like fake door tests, LinkedIn outreach strategies, and more. Learn how to leverage these methods without a lot of money or writing code.
Explore Various Idea Types – We'll showcase different types of ideas, including marketplaces, B2B, B2C, hardware, etc.
Sign up here.
We're Hiring
We've invested in 100+ companies and 200+ founders - and we're ready to do more for founders. Join us in our mission of helping and working with founders and increasing the GDP of Southeast Asia. These are some of the key roles we're hiring for:
Fund Operations Lead - We're looking for someone who is highly organised, detail-oriented, and proactive to help us scale our backend infrastructure.
Finance Manager / Controller - As we continue to scale the number of investments we make and the size of the checks, you will be the go-to person for all things finance-related, and play a critical role in owning and driving our Financial Management capabilities.
Portfolio Success Manager - You'll be a key part of our Founders Team, working directly with founders we've invested in. Your success will be gauged by the impact you make on their growth.
If you think you're a good fit, or if you'd like to check out the other roles, go here.