Early to the Party: The Unique Experience of First Employees

42% say they do it as prep for entrepreneurship; Product Managers report less appreciation for the founders

Early-stage employees — the first Product, R&D, Marketing, or Operations person at a startup — face unique challenges (and opportunities). These (brave?) folks, who join a startup when everyone can still fit in the kitchen, the company is well before product-market fit, and the founders loom large, can have a very significant impact on the company. And yet, early employees receive surprisingly little attention, and often aren’t even recognized as a group with distinct perspectives and experiences.

We reached out to this group to try and get a better understanding of life as an early employee.

TL;DR: Being an early employee is an intense but largely positive experience, as these employees feel they have a significant impact on the company, think they are well positioned to benefit from its growth, and believe in the company’s prospects (despite odds that suggest otherwise). That said, things can definitely get chaotic…

Who wants to be an early-stage employee?

Being an early employee is often a deliberate decision, rather than something people stumble into. 42% believe that being an early employee is a necessary experience on their own path to entrepreneurship. This is nearly double the number that cite financial incentives or an interest in the company’s product as their main motivators.

The Upsides

Two thirds of respondents think that being an early employee positions them well to benefit from the company’s growth.

And the vast majority — 93% — think their experience as early employees will be valuable should they become entrepreneurs.

Early employees also feel that they have a significant impact on their companies, as 76% report having either the level of impact they had hoped for (43%) or more impact than they predicted (33%). This makes sense in a small startup where the number of voices is small and employees have a lot of access to, and influence on, founders.

And it appears (startup) love is somewhat blind. Given the success rate of startups (often cited as 1 in 10), respondents are extremely optimistic about the odds of their own startup’s success: 30% are sure that the company will succeed and another 44% think the startup they work at will ‘probably succeed.’ Clearly, part of being an early employee is buying into the vision of the company.

In perhaps the strongest indication that being an early employee is usually a positive experience, over half of respondents said they would want to do it again.

The Challenges

Young startups are understaffed, pretty much by definition and design, and can be somewhat chaotic (balagan being the key word). So early employees often find themselves taking on tasks and responsibilities that are not in their core, which is cited as a significant challenge by 40% of respondents. Another 31% point to shifting priorities as a challenge. And the impact is clear not just at work, but also in the lack of work-life balance (35%).

First employee’s views of founders can change over time, for better (28%) and for worse (32%).

Interestingly, over half of first Product Managers (52%) have a worse opinion of founders with time. Similarly, Product people show less interest in taking on another early employee role at a startup vs. the R&D folks. (The Product- Founder tension is one we have encountered repeatedly in our Zero to One Product Group. See our post on Getting to PM-Founder Fit)

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