Can you join a fast-paced startup and expect not to work hard?
Me: Why do you want to work for an early stage startup?
Them: I like fast pace and want to be part of a team building a product from scratch
Me: Cool, so you're a hard worker that puts in the hours?
Them: ...
So this is my situation atm when recruiting for tech roles. I don't think work-life balance is unimportant, but I'm surprised that people seem to think that joining an early-stage startup (5 ppl in) would be the regular 9-5 job.
My view is that a startup is unlikely to reach success without having the entire team put in the hours, yet many seem to think they can get an almost "free ticket" to the growth journey.
It's of course ok not to want to work that much, just that asking for fast pace but not hard work seems a bit contradictory 🥵
What do you think?
I very much disagree and although I do in fact put in the hours I would steer clear of any job where long hours was brought up during the interviewing.
I think this is confusing "fast pace", "hard work" and "putting in the hours". Three different things.
Being fast and fast pace means that things take less time, if anything that should mean goals are achieved in LESS hours, not more.
"Hard work" also does not necessarily equate to working more hours. In tech that could mean your plugged in, focussed, overcome whatever you need to overcome and get shit done.
If you're asking people to regularly work long hours I presume you're paying overtime or they are well compensated with equity - there should be something in it for them.
If you know already that you will consistently need more than 40 hours a week from an employee, you need two employees.
Hey @daveagill
Reading this I do think you’re reasoning is right.
I agree with your definitions of hard work (it can’t just be about hours) etc.
If we could acheive our goals in less hours we would love that and no one would complain! But it’s not always that case, so in real life we have to push a bit more into the hours we work or work a little longer here and there.
When hiring more people to our tiny team, we think this mindset has to be shared, for there to be a good match.
I wouldn’t expect my team to work as if they are double the size. My point is more that, if you want to be part of a small team to accomplish something big, then you got to be ready to roll up your sleeves, like the rest of us.
Does this make more sense?
Great take. Particularly the part about hard work not necessarily equating to working more hours.
This is something I'm worried about when I start hiring for my early-stage start-up. How can you measure whether someone has the same drive and work ethic as yourself?
Be super transparent and let folks self select out if they don't buy into the vision is one way of approaching it. I'd also add asking about side projects that often reveal a passion for building. For the drive part, one company hires founders to ensure everyone is motivated and has their own motives for hustling hard. Found a ton of great advice here bit.ly/3BVbdee as well as general startup tips, hope it's helpful!
What if they can complete 12 hours worth of work in 8 hours? Would you still ask them to do extra hours?
Do you pay for the extra hours?
For me, fast paced doesn't equals crazy amount of hours.
That's would of course be a different case, but it's not the response I get as that efficiency doesn't apply to most people. If you know them though, I'd love to get in touch ;)
I know a few people who are like that and when we hired them they were one of the most average applicants.
I don't know what their reaction would be if we ask them during the interviews about working extra hours but I'm assuming negative answers. It turned out that 90% of the time extra hours weren't needed from their side but when it was, we didn't have to ask.
So maybe it worth giving a chance to a candidate who will do just the average amount of work. It can turn out they have super powers.
And you can still accomplish more with someone who does just the the regular 9 to 5. That's still 8 more hours of work done.
Good points @feriforgacs, it's actually the case with my current team so you're probably right here
I don't think what you're asking is unreasonable at all. Presuming that there was a clear agreement up front and there was communication on that, they should work harder or find another role. This is where I think it's super important for every employee to get an honest sense of the day-to-day before starting to work for a company. It could avoid a lot of misunderstandings. https://gemstopup.in
My latest "discovery" about hiring is if I ever decide to launch a startup and had to hire an early bunch of people I will definitely look for people with a fire in the belly, and such people like to work hard. More so I would look for people who started their own side hustle and tasted how hard it is to grow and decide it makes more sense to do it as a team.
I'm a co-founder and CTO of a startup and I do all the tech recruiting. I never ask people to stay late, we don't have a culture of staying late (except for me).
I try to look more for people who are willing to operate almost autonomously and know how to build stuff on their own. This doesn't mean they don't get supervised, but in the early stages you need people who will put forward ideas and are proactive.
I actually intervene if people stay late a couple of times. I rather have healthy, productive, and happy people. And for that you need rest and sparetime ;) No one wins if my most productive employee burns out in a couple of months. I also think that people who can't manage time and priorities don't have a place in a young startup.
You need to recruit more people if the work doesn't get done. It's that easy. Is "hard work" a proxy for you? It might be a different quality you might be after (for me it's being proactive and having the will to explore the unbeaten path and come up with suggestions for problems which I'm not even aware of).
Imho keeping existing employees is way more important than recruiting new people.
Honestly, this exchange screams "toxic boss who expects way too much!" If you're looking for people who are going to care as much as you care it seems like what you need is a business partner, not an employee. An employee is there to do a job during business hours.
I get that the "startup culture" is thought of as "we're always at the office, we're building the future, we're eating every meal together, we're not taking care of our personal lives because this is more important," but aren't we kinda past the point now where that holds the same promise it once did?
10 or 15 years ago the idea that a tech start up can "change the world" led to this false promise to begin with. But Airbnb didn't reinvent hotels, it contributed to a terrible problem in the housing market and changed the perception of prestige travel from 5 Star Hotel to quirky boho apartment for rent. Facebook didn't "connect the world," it just made it easier to manipulate people. None of the 150 "family social networks/to do lists/document vaults" have changed how families interact with each other – they've all just been bought or gone out of business within a year or two.
Point being: You're not going to change the world. If you're lucky, you'll have a lucrative business where YOU make a bunch of money, and if you're REALLY lucky, you might have a nice IPO where some early employees get to cash out a bunch of money. But most employees who join your company are not going to share in that wealth or feel like they're doing mission-driven work. So treating them like they have to give you everything seems really silly to me.
Hi @jordankreueger,
It's ok to think this is toxic but real life is far more nuanced which I think one should be able to understand from my post; I'm saying that I don't think work-life balance is unimportant, and I really mean that. Also, this is of course a very simplified example of the conversations I have with candidates.
I agree with you that we are pass the point where founders can ask their employees to devote all their lives to work, it's also not what I'm asking.
I think you're describing good arguments for startups in a later stage than where we are. But, as stated in the post, we are 5 people in. We're pre product market fit and we will have to work hard to get the funding, customers and growth needed to not close down a year from now. That's our reality and so is it for most startups in a simliar phase. Also, candidates knows this and it's that excitement and opportunity that I assume they find interesting with startups, hence why they apply.
What I'm saying is that the journey that many are excited to be a part of will be very short if everyone doesn't push hard. Later on when we've scaled to more stability, the case will be different for current and future employees.
Startups pre product market fit and startups post series A,B,C require different of their employees.
"the journey that many are excited to be a part of will be very short if everyone doesn't push hard"
Can you define specifically what you mean by "work hard"? Because it sounds like you're using this as a euphemism for "working way too much and being asked way too much."
From your response, it sounds to me like what you want is for this community to validate unreasonable expectations from your employees, despite the fact that a number of people here – besides me – are saying, "This doesn't sound right to me."
I don't think what you're asking is unreasonable at all. Presuming that there was a clear agreement up front and there was communication on that, they should work harder or find another role. This is where I think it's super important for every employee to get an honest sense of the day-to-day before starting to work for a company. It could avoid a lot of misunderstandings.
Agree. If having these requirements one must be transparent up front with expectations, of course. Because I don't want to force people into "working hard", thats not healthy. I wish to build the team that does so because we're all driven of ambition the same way
Btw, which is your home mountain /where do you ski? We have that interest in common!!
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Are they going to be compensated for their "hard" work? If your employees get a percentage of the startup, then sure, what you are expecting is quite reasonable.
On the other hand if its just a salary then who in the right mind would dedicate their life to your business?
Haha you're right we offer options/ shares!
Although, many candidates have preferred higher salaries over options which I was also a bit surprised by (and we try to match the market salaries best we can, so we do pay standard already)
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=236035955145847
You cannot expect your employee to work as hard as you. That said, bay area kids have insane expectations that tech executives are fed up (https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/09/cramer-tech-ceos-tell-me-theyre-sick-of-spoiled-silicon-valley-employees.html). Remember, if you want to work anywhere, any time, they don't need to hire you, they can hire someone as good or better for better the price and better outcome.
By the way, I don't know how engineers can be good without putting in the hours. I am fairly decent and experienced. I work tons of hours and my biggest fear growing up is that someone out there is smarter and putting in more hours than me.
It's actually good that the candidate is giving honest feedback about not wanting to work extra hours, I respect that, and obviously not a good fit as early-stage employees.
What's worse is that they told you they were gonna work hard and get things done whatever it takes but didn't after you hired them, and you have to let them go.
Much more painful to fire somebody than keep interviewing more candidates to find the right fit.
True, luckily that hasn't been the case for me, not that I track how much my team work, we're all remote so I just don't know, but I find that we all push to get the job done and can trust that :)
I think an employee will never have the same drive and passions as the founders or roles with a significant share of the company.
And IMO that's totally fine, if pay him for x hours a day/week. If you need more speed, you need to hire additional roles and not expect 1 person to fill 2 roles.
The interesting part of interviews is to find out does the person drives for her/his role. If someone loves to work in some area, they will also put in the extra effort.
But starting with such a question up front creates somehow a strange vibe.
I think that's fine too. I would not work the hours I do If I hadn't founded this company myself (and I'm also not asking my employees to work my hours).
My expectations aren't for people to work as if there were two of them. It's more
a drive or attitude, like what you are describing that is needed :)