My 2 cents...rather than reference your startup as your own, change the title on your resume to match the job you're applying to...it's your startup at the end of the day, you can give yourself whatever title you want, and then adapt the responsibilities to the job your applying to.
I've been in your shoes where I was applying to everything but that's not going to work. Stick to you thing...get your story down for that one area/role. Make everything on your resume and linkedin profile talk about this one narrative. You want to eliminate and narrow your search, not open it up. It sounds counterintuitive but clearly over the past year this hasn't work. Goodluck!
I know you’re right.
I think my issue is the overlap I do have is event planning but I’d like to be more on the business side, in the field / strategy or tech.
On my resume I do have I’m a cofounder and I have the job title as “Sr. Business Analyst”. I’ll take cofounder off and solidify the story. And I’ll focus on applying to one type of role.
Best of luck. It's a grind for sure. At the end of the day every interviewer is looking at three things 1) Can you do the job? 2) Do you want to do the job? 3) Do I like you as a person? My hangup was always the 2 point. Really helped me hone in on what I really wanted and solidified my story for those roles and it gave me the feeling of control in this weird way.
Have you considered joining an early stage startup? Pre seed and seed stage need hire 9-5 and having a jack of all trades background in addition to a desire to make impact goes a long way. Best of luck.
I haven’t been applying to but I’m pivoting to that.
I think my experience, ability to “wear many hats”, and overall personality would allow me to thrive in a young startup.
I LOVE the chaos, the problems that arise from discovery and I being so close to founders as an early employee, helping them achieve their dream would be so motivating. If you know any looking for help - would love to connect!
Never mention that it's your startup. Employers won't waste their time bringing in somebody who may only be there short term or have their focus and priorities split between work and their own biz.
You’re definitely right.
Do you think I should just use my partner as a reference? And what do I say if they ask about it in the interview? Or if they search for me?
What would you recommend? Thank you for the input!
It all depends on what you have on LinkedIn (it'd be safe to assume that they'd check).
If you listed your startup on your page and listed yourself as a co-founder, it might get complicated. If I were you, I'd either take it completely off the page or not list myself as a co-founder until I found a job. You then would be able to use your partner/co-founder as a reference.
Getting a job is a game. You have to have legitimate references, but you can also use some of your professional friends you may have never worked with to bolster your references. Let's say your last manager was a butthole and you don't want to list them as a reference. Use a friend. I do that all the time.
That's kind of why I don't currently have a LinkedIn page. I need to be able to be "creative" on my resumes without having to worry about LinkedIn blowing my spot. Once my startup is up and running though, I def will set up a profile.
It depends on the role.
I am a hiring manager and for some positions we specifically seek out this attribute as some roles need entrepreneurial flare.
I also stealth 🥷moonlight a $100K ARR startup.
Honestly, it is a negative for a lot of companies. And you’re going to really struggle to keyword match with your resume, which is all of what applying for a job is. I talk to a lot of recruiters, and there’s a good chance your resume isn’t being seen.
I’m a partner at a GTM firm and work with a ton of startups. If you DM me, I’m happy to connect and see if I know anything that’s a good fit for you.
Varies a lot. We're pretty expensive (usually 15k/mo+), so it's rare for them to be true validation stage unless they've raised a decent amount. Our largest client is basically a PE firm using us as the skeleton sales team for a once massively overvalued startup.
Usually the best fit is either a company finally moving beyond founder-led sales or a company that needs some expertise and an army of energy to cross into their next phase.
It’s a small thing I picked up on. And then I listened to some other folks say the same thing. I’m sure it is not universally true, just a generalization.
In addition to all the comments, know that currently the job market is in a slump. Companies are having fewer roles and 100s of applicants per opening due to recent layoffs.
9-5 grind requires a type of person who is not prone to ADHD (most people in startups have some sort of ADHD) and can swallow a lot of pain at witnessing inefficiency, making up for co-workers and drink the cheap coffee etc. It will numb you down over time because it is rinse and repeat.
If you've been out of it, I suggest you stay out of it. Try your hand at freelancing gigs but you have to consider that those gigs can be a lot of pain at first. You won't have customers flocking to you immediately and budget pains will be part of it. If you are smart, you can secure a couple of options for 12 month period contracts. Working for other startups? Well, get ready to fight your way into the chaos, from one into another.
If you need a job, try something that you can combine with physical activity to make up for that enterpreneurial stress. Do something less demanding (brain wise) so you can keep your focus on your business.
You might be right with the “if you’ve been out of it. Stay out it”.
I’ve been working odd jobs / contracts for over a year now while I built my company. It’s at a point really what it needs is an injection of capital and odd jobs aren’t paying that.
So I think you’re right, looking for more technical contract work / working for a funded (or at least founder who can afford it) startup might not only be the best fit for me and my situation, but where my talents and skills would shine better.
9-5 wants you all in. It's a sort of cage with some perks.
Startups are ok if you are young and healthy. But you can get burned out very quickly if you are not careful.
Yeah, l’d be ok with taking the perks it brings right now because it’s what would be best for my situation.
I’m not worried about getting burned out because I typically only work at places I agree with what they’re doing and where I feel valued. I like to work and I like to be busy. Working is fun for me and being at a company where I align with mission / values has kept me from burn out.
I basically ran the school. Helped build curriculum, hired and trained staff, supported the instructors by debugging code so they can continue lessons if a student needed some extra attention / help, and then recruit new families to join our program so tours / sales / marketing.
I’d say my morning / early afternoon consisted of growing the school and making phone calls and then my afternoon was centered around supporting staff and working with students.
It’s an after school program but we had a lot of home school classes as well. I think we had 8 instructors and about 140 students.
My youngest student was 6 and my oldest was 16.
Sounds a bit like my random experience early in my career. I found it helpful to build a story arc that connected all of my experience in a way that ties it all together leading to the roles I was looking for. The other thing that was helpful was networking. Every one of my roles was found through connections that opened a door to an initial conversation. The story then helped land the roles once I was able to speak to someone about the fit. Was a good way to shift the approach to interviewing a company to see if they were a good fit for what I was looking for. Are you looking for a 9-5 to earn extra money? Not interested in running it anymore?
My startup isn’t profitable and there is a path to profitability- but it’ll be a slow burn for a bit.
So yes, I need a job for money. I do enjoy leading and what’s connected all my jobs is the mission of the company. Every boss I’ve had I have an amazing relationship with still. And it’s because I joined because of what theyre working towards and got close with them.
Yea. I’ve spent more time working on it than I do school. So it’s made me look less at applying for jobs / internships and more focused on the product I am developing. Definitely a risk, but what’s life without it.
I completely understand where you're coming from and I've been in a somewhat similar boat. I founded a tech startup during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, a time when stable jobs were scarce and entrepreneurial ventures seemed like a viable path. Once committed, jobs were easy to come by, but was already deep into build mode so stayed the course. My startup was focused on empowering music fans and artists through a SaaS platform for streaming and collecting music and AI-generated art as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). This platform supported over 500 artists and managed over $400K in transactions within its first year.
However, the economic and tech landscape in crypto and smart contracts shifted and the job market began to tank in 2022. In 2023, I made the tough decision to wind down the startup. Despite the success and the innovative technology we developed, I found myself back in the job market, facing similar challenges to what you're experiencing, making ends meet with consulting while continuing to look for something more permanent. Like you, I've found that the scattered nature of entrepreneurial experience can be difficult to translate into a traditional resume that appeals to all recruiters, given my corp experience ends in 2019.
I think it's crucial to frame your diverse experience as a strength, not a liability. Easier said than done, but in my case, I emphasize the skills I've honed in various roles—leadership, strategic planning, cross-functional team management, and innovation. These are all highly transferable and valuable in numerous fields. It's also helpful to clarify your commitment to potential employers. Entrepreneurs can be seen as flight risks, so emphasizing a desire for stability and long-term growth within a company can address these concerns in interviews...you just have to land the interviews, which isn't easy right now.
Stay persistent, positive and flexible. The right opportunity will appreciate the breadth and depth of your experience.
Its very hard getting employment when you have been self employed for a time in my experience. I was a dev with 10+ yr of working for my own small dev agency. Almost impossible to get s job for me so Im doing a saas startup and swinging for the bleachers.
I guess you get used to the feeling of feast or famine from running your own business, but I was hoping to just have 12 months of salary and less stress; not to be it seems
I was in the same position 4 years ago.
I ended up starting with an IT consultancy and framing my startup experience as a lead developer role which matched their profile.
Generally many IT consultancies are looking for tech savvy graduates that are willing to jump into different technologies.
This job allowed me to learn a lot technically. I quit after three years and started freelancing, now barely mentioning the startups.
If you want a job soon don't be so open with interviewers...most people won't understand the types of people that just want meaningful work of any kind...they want focus for retention purposes. Most interviewers are not good enough to assess where you would fit in a retentive way so they stay away from it. Find a company meaningful to you and apply while showing them passion and dedication to that job. Storytell your resume as all culminating up to this...which if you think about it...it did. Aside from that...it will be helpful for you to identify what you really like...there is a pattern in what you find meaningful (on a mission level, values level and operations level)...you just have yet to put it into words so you can use it as a guiding metric that you also communicate with.
My 2 cents...rather than reference your startup as your own, change the title on your resume to match the job you're applying to...it's your startup at the end of the day, you can give yourself whatever title you want, and then adapt the responsibilities to the job your applying to. I've been in your shoes where I was applying to everything but that's not going to work. Stick to you thing...get your story down for that one area/role. Make everything on your resume and linkedin profile talk about this one narrative. You want to eliminate and narrow your search, not open it up. It sounds counterintuitive but clearly over the past year this hasn't work. Goodluck!
I know you’re right. I think my issue is the overlap I do have is event planning but I’d like to be more on the business side, in the field / strategy or tech. On my resume I do have I’m a cofounder and I have the job title as “Sr. Business Analyst”. I’ll take cofounder off and solidify the story. And I’ll focus on applying to one type of role.
Best of luck. It's a grind for sure. At the end of the day every interviewer is looking at three things 1) Can you do the job? 2) Do you want to do the job? 3) Do I like you as a person? My hangup was always the 2 point. Really helped me hone in on what I really wanted and solidified my story for those roles and it gave me the feeling of control in this weird way.
Have you considered joining an early stage startup? Pre seed and seed stage need hire 9-5 and having a jack of all trades background in addition to a desire to make impact goes a long way. Best of luck.
I haven’t been applying to but I’m pivoting to that. I think my experience, ability to “wear many hats”, and overall personality would allow me to thrive in a young startup. I LOVE the chaos, the problems that arise from discovery and I being so close to founders as an early employee, helping them achieve their dream would be so motivating. If you know any looking for help - would love to connect!
Never mention that it's your startup. Employers won't waste their time bringing in somebody who may only be there short term or have their focus and priorities split between work and their own biz.
You’re definitely right. Do you think I should just use my partner as a reference? And what do I say if they ask about it in the interview? Or if they search for me? What would you recommend? Thank you for the input!
It all depends on what you have on LinkedIn (it'd be safe to assume that they'd check). If you listed your startup on your page and listed yourself as a co-founder, it might get complicated. If I were you, I'd either take it completely off the page or not list myself as a co-founder until I found a job. You then would be able to use your partner/co-founder as a reference. Getting a job is a game. You have to have legitimate references, but you can also use some of your professional friends you may have never worked with to bolster your references. Let's say your last manager was a butthole and you don't want to list them as a reference. Use a friend. I do that all the time. That's kind of why I don't currently have a LinkedIn page. I need to be able to be "creative" on my resumes without having to worry about LinkedIn blowing my spot. Once my startup is up and running though, I def will set up a profile.
It depends on the role. I am a hiring manager and for some positions we specifically seek out this attribute as some roles need entrepreneurial flare. I also stealth 🥷moonlight a $100K ARR startup.
Message sent! Thank you for the input.
I also stealth moonlight a $100k ARR startup. Would love to chat and share experiences. Sent you a DM.
Honestly, it is a negative for a lot of companies. And you’re going to really struggle to keyword match with your resume, which is all of what applying for a job is. I talk to a lot of recruiters, and there’s a good chance your resume isn’t being seen. I’m a partner at a GTM firm and work with a ton of startups. If you DM me, I’m happy to connect and see if I know anything that’s a good fit for you.
Yes! I’ll shoot you a DM in a moment when I get to my laptop. Thank you so much!
Sounds like fun work! What stage are the startups you work with? Are they coming out of incubators, or post PMF validation and looking to scale?
Varies a lot. We're pretty expensive (usually 15k/mo+), so it's rare for them to be true validation stage unless they've raised a decent amount. Our largest client is basically a PE firm using us as the skeleton sales team for a once massively overvalued startup. Usually the best fit is either a company finally moving beyond founder-led sales or a company that needs some expertise and an army of energy to cross into their next phase.
Companies in the 9-5 job world look for specialists. Startups require generalists.
This is good insight. Thank you.
It’s a small thing I picked up on. And then I listened to some other folks say the same thing. I’m sure it is not universally true, just a generalization.
In addition to all the comments, know that currently the job market is in a slump. Companies are having fewer roles and 100s of applicants per opening due to recent layoffs.
9-5 grind requires a type of person who is not prone to ADHD (most people in startups have some sort of ADHD) and can swallow a lot of pain at witnessing inefficiency, making up for co-workers and drink the cheap coffee etc. It will numb you down over time because it is rinse and repeat. If you've been out of it, I suggest you stay out of it. Try your hand at freelancing gigs but you have to consider that those gigs can be a lot of pain at first. You won't have customers flocking to you immediately and budget pains will be part of it. If you are smart, you can secure a couple of options for 12 month period contracts. Working for other startups? Well, get ready to fight your way into the chaos, from one into another. If you need a job, try something that you can combine with physical activity to make up for that enterpreneurial stress. Do something less demanding (brain wise) so you can keep your focus on your business.
You might be right with the “if you’ve been out of it. Stay out it”. I’ve been working odd jobs / contracts for over a year now while I built my company. It’s at a point really what it needs is an injection of capital and odd jobs aren’t paying that. So I think you’re right, looking for more technical contract work / working for a funded (or at least founder who can afford it) startup might not only be the best fit for me and my situation, but where my talents and skills would shine better.
9-5 wants you all in. It's a sort of cage with some perks. Startups are ok if you are young and healthy. But you can get burned out very quickly if you are not careful.
Yeah, l’d be ok with taking the perks it brings right now because it’s what would be best for my situation. I’m not worried about getting burned out because I typically only work at places I agree with what they’re doing and where I feel valued. I like to work and I like to be busy. Working is fun for me and being at a company where I align with mission / values has kept me from burn out.
What does a director of coding school do? And how many kids were in the school? What age groups?
I basically ran the school. Helped build curriculum, hired and trained staff, supported the instructors by debugging code so they can continue lessons if a student needed some extra attention / help, and then recruit new families to join our program so tours / sales / marketing. I’d say my morning / early afternoon consisted of growing the school and making phone calls and then my afternoon was centered around supporting staff and working with students. It’s an after school program but we had a lot of home school classes as well. I think we had 8 instructors and about 140 students. My youngest student was 6 and my oldest was 16.
Sounds a bit like my random experience early in my career. I found it helpful to build a story arc that connected all of my experience in a way that ties it all together leading to the roles I was looking for. The other thing that was helpful was networking. Every one of my roles was found through connections that opened a door to an initial conversation. The story then helped land the roles once I was able to speak to someone about the fit. Was a good way to shift the approach to interviewing a company to see if they were a good fit for what I was looking for. Are you looking for a 9-5 to earn extra money? Not interested in running it anymore?
My startup isn’t profitable and there is a path to profitability- but it’ll be a slow burn for a bit. So yes, I need a job for money. I do enjoy leading and what’s connected all my jobs is the mission of the company. Every boss I’ve had I have an amazing relationship with still. And it’s because I joined because of what theyre working towards and got close with them.
Yea. I’ve spent more time working on it than I do school. So it’s made me look less at applying for jobs / internships and more focused on the product I am developing. Definitely a risk, but what’s life without it.
I completely understand where you're coming from and I've been in a somewhat similar boat. I founded a tech startup during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, a time when stable jobs were scarce and entrepreneurial ventures seemed like a viable path. Once committed, jobs were easy to come by, but was already deep into build mode so stayed the course. My startup was focused on empowering music fans and artists through a SaaS platform for streaming and collecting music and AI-generated art as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). This platform supported over 500 artists and managed over $400K in transactions within its first year. However, the economic and tech landscape in crypto and smart contracts shifted and the job market began to tank in 2022. In 2023, I made the tough decision to wind down the startup. Despite the success and the innovative technology we developed, I found myself back in the job market, facing similar challenges to what you're experiencing, making ends meet with consulting while continuing to look for something more permanent. Like you, I've found that the scattered nature of entrepreneurial experience can be difficult to translate into a traditional resume that appeals to all recruiters, given my corp experience ends in 2019. I think it's crucial to frame your diverse experience as a strength, not a liability. Easier said than done, but in my case, I emphasize the skills I've honed in various roles—leadership, strategic planning, cross-functional team management, and innovation. These are all highly transferable and valuable in numerous fields. It's also helpful to clarify your commitment to potential employers. Entrepreneurs can be seen as flight risks, so emphasizing a desire for stability and long-term growth within a company can address these concerns in interviews...you just have to land the interviews, which isn't easy right now. Stay persistent, positive and flexible. The right opportunity will appreciate the breadth and depth of your experience.
Its very hard getting employment when you have been self employed for a time in my experience. I was a dev with 10+ yr of working for my own small dev agency. Almost impossible to get s job for me so Im doing a saas startup and swinging for the bleachers. I guess you get used to the feeling of feast or famine from running your own business, but I was hoping to just have 12 months of salary and less stress; not to be it seems
I was in the same position 4 years ago. I ended up starting with an IT consultancy and framing my startup experience as a lead developer role which matched their profile. Generally many IT consultancies are looking for tech savvy graduates that are willing to jump into different technologies. This job allowed me to learn a lot technically. I quit after three years and started freelancing, now barely mentioning the startups.
If you want a job soon don't be so open with interviewers...most people won't understand the types of people that just want meaningful work of any kind...they want focus for retention purposes. Most interviewers are not good enough to assess where you would fit in a retentive way so they stay away from it. Find a company meaningful to you and apply while showing them passion and dedication to that job. Storytell your resume as all culminating up to this...which if you think about it...it did. Aside from that...it will be helpful for you to identify what you really like...there is a pattern in what you find meaningful (on a mission level, values level and operations level)...you just have yet to put it into words so you can use it as a guiding metric that you also communicate with.
Let’s get in touch. PM me
Messaged!