Joining a company that is designed to grow fast early in its lifecycle - aka a VC-backed company with promising signs of success - gives you unparalleled exposure to situations and decisions that only very few people get to see. Thanks to the high velocity of decisions you will need to make and experiencing what I like to call “real life feedback” it will offer you the steepest learning curve. In comparison to time spent in more mature companies where a superior is often responsible for the outcome of a decision, in early stage startups there is often a lack of more “senior people” due to being so resource constraint. Your acts will impact the success of a company 10-100x more than in a normal company.

Here are some reasons why I think joining as employee #1-50 will boost your career exponentially:

  1. High level of ownership and responsibility: In an early-stage startup, everyone needs to work on the most crucial problems and activities at that given moment. Often, you will need to make decisions that are far above your pay grade. The frequency and importance of decisions you will work on are unparalleled to any other employment type, especially if don’t have 10+ years of experience/ seniority. You will get the freedom to shape the startup’s agenda, come up with, and implement your own solutions and learn from mistakes with immediate, real-life feedback loops.
  2. Strong influence on crucial decisions: Hiring, shaping the product roadmap, making crucial technical or business decisions, fundraising, forming the company culture…these are dimensions that are often reserved for the leadership of a company as their impact will last years. As one of the first employees, you will get to participate in or even own some of these crucial aspects that will together shape the culture of the company. For example, an early-stage engineer can define the technology stack the rest of the company will be built on. An early marketing hire can build the brand from the ground up.
  3. Steep growth trajectory inside the company: If things go well and the startup is growing, it means you did a great job. The first 2-3 years of a company, are the ideal time to demonstrate your ability to learn and grow with the company, giving you the perfect springboard to skip hierarchies you would otherwise need to go through in a corporate environment. Internally, you know the company better than anyone else and become a reliable source of truth for junior and senior colleagues alike.
  4. Financial upside: Joining as one of the first employees means that your equity package is very attractive. You are receiving a much larger ESOP share to compensate for the larger risk you are taking on by joining early. The first 50 employees of a successful startup are very likely to be €-(multi-)millionaires once they can liquidate their stake. A growing number of companies are looking to give partial liquidation opportunities to employees before a big-bang exit 7-10 years after company inception. This can be done for instance as part of a fundraising round.
  5. Career opportunities afterwards: Having been part of a successful organization from the very start gives you a unique reputation on the labor market - because there are simply not a lot of you. Founders, executives and tech operators understand that 2-3 years on paper actually compound to many more years in actual operating experience with the velocity of decisions and actions you had to make in those years. They will know that your impact as one of a couple of handful of early employees is enormous - every decision that you make and action you take can make the difference between running out of money or getting the company to the next level. This sets you up very well for founding your own company one day or for an attractive leadership role in your next startup adventure.

<aside> 💡 Recommended reads: Read This Before Joining as Employee 1 to 20 at a Startup by Stacy La (employee #3 at Clover Health) What You Learn at a Startup that Grows from $0 to $7.75 Billion in 2 Years by Dave Schools (employee #8 at Hopin) First Startup Employees by early employees of various unicorns (Wise, Gousto, GoCardless, etc.)

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