Has anyone worked at a start up before and what was your experience? I'm thinking of ditching the butt kissing corporate life at a declining Cisco in favour for a high growth start up. I saw a few friends leave Cisco for Nutanix and AppDynamics. One will never need to work again after just 3 years, the other made just under $1m in the IPO. I know not every sartup goes big like these but with the old guard Cisco, HP, Microsoft and IBM buying up anything that look shiny, surely now is the best time to give it a go?
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I've worked in a start up and it was full of people, just like you, who had had enough of corporate life. Most of the senior people had been big hitters in top tech companies. The lack of bureaucracy was liberating, it was fun, people worked hard and played hard. I was a salaried employee and accepted that there was a risk longer term if things didn't work out. I found everyone was working to common goals and there was great team spirit. Can't say the same about Cisco.
It was a great experience and I would recommend it.
For every startup you hear about allowing people to retire rich, there are hundreds that fail. And thousands that just end up being a job, same as Cisco.
I strongly agree with everything except "same as Cisco." Cisco is a sustaining organization for the remains of acquisitions and most of its engineers and managers have no systems or development skills. Since no one is forced to fix their own mistakes few people there know how bad they really are.
As for the original poster, I'm not seeing any real goals other than wanting to be rich which is a really weak starting point. Startups created by people like you will ask for 100+ hours a week with an hourly pay of a burger flipper at a fast food place and they'll be among the "hundreds that fail."
For those looking for more than money, startups (and even more so small companies with stable but not astronomical growth) offer a chance to exercise and grow a much larger set of skills, and you'll often have direct contact with the customer which will improve your understanding of the underlying business as well as the technology. At an established small company you'll also be able to stay at the job over time if you want or to have the skill set to sell to the next employer. Staying at one place for a while can also teach you lessons about the lifecycle of a product (versus a single release) which will be useful in building a sustainable startup if you want to go that way later.
Meraki did it by banning anyone that wasn't part of the Meraki BU from even entering their building. Thus this lead to Cisco having multiple buildings in Cisco (increasing $$$). Cisco has no interest in integrating Meraki into Cisco, just their revenue stream. They've always been the "golden child" and "don't F--k up Meraki".
Huge difference in culture and working day . It also depends what you do, sales, pre-sales, development, support ........
Also start-up is a mind set as well as the stage of funding, if you mean pre-IPO that is a different conversation all together.Remember 7 out of 10 VC backed companies ultimately fail !
As an example , Meraki at Cisco has tried to keep the start-up culture even being part of this huge company. So decide if you want to have the work culture or the opportunity to cash in options or both.
Always do you research on the Founders of the company , go for founders who have done this before , this way you have minimized the risk , then look in to the VC's and the board .
It's not for everyone. It's a huge gamble, if you have family/kids and a ton of bills to pay over next 10 to 20 years, you'd be much safer playing a solid stable company play...
For every startup you hear about allowing people to retire rich, there are hundreds that fail. And thousands that just end up being a job, same as Cisco.
I worked for a company pre-IPO and the investors that came in to take us through the IPO changed what we did that made us worth buying and turned us into a hot mess that got kicked off the NASDAQ at the end of the first year, and completely out of business in 18 months. Another company I came in just prior to the IPO, but they cut off the pre-IPO stock options for those that were hired 30 days prior to my start date. While my options were close to their strike price, they were underwater when I was laid off.
I would only go to work at a start-up if you can make money while you're working there. If you're losing money being there hoping to get rich post-IPO then you're a fool.
Let's see, IoT and Cloud, two of the hottest areas in IT... are undergoing layoffs... so if you want to do those at Cisco, go work for a startup and wait for the acquisition... b/c Sr. Mgmt only knows how to buy talent, not grow/develop it.
If you're good in math then you'll figure out the answer. If not, you're ok to work for shishco