How to vet a startup while joining one?
Starting up is a risky task for the founders. It would be equally risky for a few early employees too. While taking up this risk, it is important to evaluate the pros and cons. Below are steps that I personally follow to vet a startup before joining. You can use them for the same or for other needs.
Personal Checks
The first thing I do is check if the product is something I will use on a daily basis or monthly basis. If yes, then it’s a good start. If no, I will check if it helps a particular community or my other friends and family.
Founder Checks
I will google to find details on the founding team. I will look for founder videos or blogs or articles to see how convincing the founding team or person is. I strongly believe that a founder or founding team should have a strong convincing attitude as they need to convince the press, his team, investors and many more. I will also check the team’s storytelling skills.
I will check if the founding team has a strong connection and the events that took place in bringing them together.
Lastly, I will check if they did any startups together in the past. A success or failure doesn’t matter much as I believe in the fact that ‘A strong team who is not too worried about the outcome but focusing on the journey by providing a magical experience to their customer will always win’’.
Developer Team Checks
I will check if there are any medium articles or GitHub links where I can see the contributions made thus far. For me, this is important as it helps in understanding the values of the startup and how they contribute back to the community.
If possible or when needed, I will try to interact with them on slack or through medium comments to better understand them and check if I will fit into their culture.
Product Checks
During this time I will try to put myself in user shoes and test the product.I will try to write down what my one start experience would be along with three-star, five star and a seven star. I will then compare this with community feedback. This helps in understanding how well the startup knows its customers along with validating product-market fit.
I will check for competitors. Competition is always good as it helps in validating products or ideas.
I will see if there any gatekeepers who will cause an issue to the product or company such as government restrictions etc down the road.
Lastly, I will check if the product is something that sells on its own or requires a strong marketing team. I will also try to understand the glue that sticks customers to this startup.
Technology Checks
Based on the checks I have done so far I will try to find what technologies the startup users. I will look for job openings and team skills on LinkedIn for this. This will help me in understanding the core technology used as well as getting excited sometimes.
Marketing Checks
In here I will recheck if the product sells itself and how it got the first few users.
I will check if they have a strong marketing team as this helps in scaling the product in both the short and long term. I usually start with Instagram, Twitter or Facebook
Funding Checks
Lastly, I will check if they received any funding till date on ‘crunchbase’ as this helps in understanding early stage investments and trust placed in starup by investors.
Please share your approaches or checks in validating a startup. I will add them to the list
