Entering StartUpLand: An Essential Guide to Finding the Right Job

by Jeffrey Bussgang

"Whether you're just getting started, or you’re ten years into your career, Entering StartUpLand will be a useful tool to enhance your startup knowledge, accelerate your career, and navigate your way to StartUpLand success." -- Huffington Post

Many professionals aspire to work for startups. Executives from large companies view them as models to help them adapt to today's dynamic innovation economy, while freshly minted MBAs see magic in founding something new. Yes, startups look magical, but they can also be chaotic and inaccessible. Many books are written for those who aspire to be founders, but a company only has one or two of those. What's needed is something that deconstructs the typical startup organization for the thousands of employees who join a fledgling company and do the day-to-day work required to grow it into something of value.

Entering StartUpLand is a practical, step-by-step guide that provides an insider's analysis of various startup roles and responsibilities--including product management, marketing, growth, and sales--to help you figure out if you want to join a startup and what to expect if you do. You'll gain insight into how successful startups operate and learn to assess which ones you might want to join--or emulate. Inside this book you'll

A tour of typical startup roles to help you determine which one might be the best fit for youProfiles of startup executives across many different functions who share their stories and describe their responsibilitiesA methodology to identify and evaluate startups and position yourself to find the opportunity that's right for you

Written by an experienced venture capitalist, entrepreneur, and Harvard Business School professor, Entering StartUpLand will guide you as you seek your ideal entry point into this popular, cutting-edge organizational paradigm.

Genres: Business, Entrepreneurship, Nonfiction

278 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 10, 2017

Reviews

[Aman Mittal · Rating 4 out of 5]

We see startups everywhere. Being a part of the fastest growing economy the word startup is now on the mouth of everyone. Some have their own definitions of it, but as Jeffrey Bussgang mentions it is hard to define the word startup in mere words. To help reader understand the concept and those aspiring to work for startups will definitely get some help by reading this book.

Entering StartupLand: An Essential Guide to Finding Right Job is pragmatic approach to various career options or job profiles and responsibilities that are available almost in every startup. This includes product management, business development, marketing, growth and sales. To help one figure out what to expect when someone joins a startup there are insights from Jeffrey's own life as he started his career with Open Market that was once a startup in 1997.

The book divides in eight chapters and begins with introduction to the startup culture and then discuss various but essential job profiles. Within the context, Jeffrey has made an effort to clarify and get his readers familiar with terms like Scrum and Agile working methodology. This I feel, is good for the reader to know some of the main buzzwords and make an effort to understand if they are new or not familiar with the context.

Having worked myself in one startup, I will say there are times when you dwell in uncertainty. Be ready for that. You may have to handle multiple responsibilities. Jeffrey has differentiated the two organisational paradigms, what a stable corporate life is and how it is different from the startup.

Since it is a nonfiction work, I don't have much to write about the narrative voice. The book is written in an expressive and clear language. I do strongly feel that the author could have make an effort to explore the possibility of other skills that are common with startup culture.

If you want to get familiar with this term and its scions then this book is a great starting point. Perfect target audience are students in colleges and universities or someone looking for a job/career change.

4 out of 5!

[Shawn Flaherty · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars! A must read for anyone going through the process of joining a startup. I would label this a solid primer on all things startup related, including funding stages, common roles, and the search process.

The role chapters were great for self-exploration. I came out having a much better idea of what types of roles I would enjoy, and that I could successfully pitch based on previous experience and interests. I also really liked the compensation guidelines given there is almost no guidance online on what is reasonable by company maturity and level. Especially for equity.

In the next edition, I would recommend a few additions:
- In the Roles section, coverage on some of the newer roles (e.g. Customer Success, Chief of Staff)
- In the Search Process chapter, adding common job board resources for startups (hint, it’s not LinkedIn)
- Also in the Search Process chapter, adding some guidance on prioritizing your early conversations to get your elevator pitch down before you go after your top targets. I learned a lot through my search process and was much better at selling myself after some reps

[Alceste · Rating 4 out of 5]

We see startups everywhere. Being a part of the fastest growing economy the word startup is now on the mouth of everyone. Some have their own definitions of it, but as Jeffrey Bussgang mentions it is hard to define the word startup in mere words. To help reader understand the concept and those aspiring to work for startups will definitely get some help by reading this book.

Entering StartupLand: An Essential Guide to Finding Right Job is pragmatic approach to various career options or job profiles and responsibilities that are available almost in every startup. This includes product management, business development, marketing, growth and sales. To help one figure out what to expect when someone joins a startup there are insights from Jeffrey's own life as he started his career with Open Market that was once a startup in 1997.

The book divides in eight chapters and begins with introduction to the startup culture and then discuss various but essential job profiles. Within the context, Jeffrey has made an effort to clarify and get his readers familiar with terms like Scrum and Agile working methodology. This I feel, is good for the reader to know some of the main buzzwords and make an effort to understand if they are new or not familiar with the context.

Having worked myself in one startup, I will say there are times when you dwell in uncertainty. Be ready for that. You may have to handle multiple responsibilities. Jeffrey has differentiated the two organisational paradigms, what a stable corporate life is and how it is different from the startup.

Since it is a nonfiction work, I don't have much to write about the narrative voice. The book is written in an expressive and clear language. I do strongly feel that the author could have make an effort to explore the possibility of other skills that are common with startup culture.

If you want to get familiar with this term and its scions then this book is a great starting point. Perfect target audience are students in colleges and universities or someone looking for a job/career change.

4 out of 5!

[Anchit · Rating 4 out of 5]

I tried this via an audio book playing in my car while I drove to my office everyday. I finished it upto 40% around before dropping it on the "Product Development Team" chapter. This chapter brings out the PD team as being quite different from the Development teams that I've worked with in real life. I didn't have any example in real life to relate this to and listening to it felt somewhat abstract. It would have been great if the author could have added some case studies too so that I can get "a feel" of things.

An example like this would have hepled: "There was once a company that had 10 employees. The proprietor was part of the Product Development team and he was doing X for the company's product - which was a Y. After doing X a couple of times he felt that this wasn't helping the team and he decided to get a dedicated Product Developer to do this job. The new guy did Z and A,B, C which helped the business make a lot more sales/marketing or whatever. This is why a Product Developer's role can make a good difference to the team. And this is how it is different from a Development team."

[Vijai Narayanan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The central theme of this book is that you don't have to be developer or an engineer to work at a startup company. With that in mind, the author takes you through typical non-technical roles at startups : sales, growth, marketing, business development, etc. He traces the evolution of these roles as the company matures (he calls these maturation phases jungle, dirt road, highway, etc). The author is up-front about the fact that technical roles are ignored in this book.

I wish the book devoted more attention to tactical tools that would help readers find startup jobs. In fact, there is only one chapter at the end dedicated to the job search, and I found it to be lacking. Too much of that chapter was spent on summarizing previous content. I also thought the writing was a little too repetitive at times, and some of the anecdotes in the book weren't particularly compelling.

With that said, this book is a fun read if you're interested in startups and want to learn more about the people behind them. It's also interesting to trace them as they scale from extremely small operations into more established institutions.

[Carolyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

For someone unfamiliar with start up land this book used a lot of jargon. Some parts were bogged down with too much detail and others were hard to follow. There were a lot of personal anecdotes related to companies that the author had been involved with and these provided a mixture of interesting information with some puff pieces. I found the first and last chapters the most helpful as well as the categorization of start ups as jungle to highway.

Even though the book is promoted for anyone interested in joining a start up, it seemed most appropriate for recent graduates trying to make choice to go the corporate route vs. start up.

[Lim Lyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is structured in chapters of
1. Introduction of startup land
2. 6 roles in a startup and the differences in the responsibility compared to big corporations
3. Searching for a startup to join

Point 1 and 3 was covered in a Harvard business review podcast I listened to . I gave a low review as I wasn’t interested in the role differences and felt that I didn’t get anything additional info that I was interested in after listening to the podcast . Probably just me

[Ju-hyun Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book can be helpful for each srartup to reduce trial and error.

스타트업의 이슈들을 경험자로서 보는 시각에서 잘 정리했다. Technical debt의 개념이나 훌륭한 product manager의 역할의 강조, A/B testing 등은 이책에서 소개하면서 접하고는 좀 더 찾아보고 생각해 보게 되었다.

[Ben Carden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good overview of what it is like to work in a startup and how you go about finding a job. Reading this book made me realise what particular function I would like to work in a startup and provided me with some resources to delve deeper into what it entails.

[Justin Fanelli]

Detailed where others are platitude-y

[Madhusudhan Reddy]

This is an amazing book for anyone who is intrigued by how startups function and the skill-sets needed to survive, sustain, and succeed in aptly called StartUpLand.

[Omar El-Mohri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wasn’t for me, but I can this useful for someone who is not familiar with the startup world, could be a student or someone starting a new career

[Greg Snowden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wish I read this back in undergrad, but not too late for those curious about life at startups and switching over from corporate positions

[Vũ Phạm · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book because I want to give a little motivation to participate in start-up business. Maybe, I couldn't have fully understood about startup Land to feel interesting. Jeffrey also helped me undergo profoundly about startup and many stages of this business which provided for me useful information in interview meeting with my boss. Additionally, I can see the work which I will be takeover in near future. Unfortunately, my rating was just 3 stars.

[Joshua Fraser]

A specific description of the various roles required at a startup with actionable responsibilities assigned. Wished I would have read this 2 years ago.

[Angela Xu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book with detailed articulation on what it means to be in a X role with a Y type of startup

[Toyin Spades · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written to guide readers considering working with start up companies. Working in startups does not suit everyone and reading this book helps prevent making the previous mistakes of others.