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Choosing Your Path in the Startup World

Choosing Your Path in the Startup World

Investor, operator, founder and support roles for STEM professionals

Giammarco Pacifico
January 17, 2024

Choosing your career path is one of the hardest choices and there is so much information out there that it’s easy to end up in “analysis paralysis”, endlessly evaluating options without taking any step.

If you’re a STEM professional stuck at a crossroads, instead of getting lost in the pros and cons of infinite options, trust your gut to pick a main direction.

“Trusting your gut” means letting your previous experiences and emotions decide what situation is best for you. It’s about listening to what your body tells you when considering a specific path.

If you’re in doubt, here is something that should help you:

My KISS approach (“Keep It Simple Stupid”)

Once you have picked a direction, it’s time to get into the nitty-gritty and optimize for a company and role that fits you.

If you’re reading this, you’re interested in startups and you’re attracted by working in a dynamic environment where you can apply your knowledge to building products that matter.

In the startup world, there are 4 main roles: founder, operator, investor and support.

During my career, I’ve tried all of them and got a taste for what it’s like to wear such different hats. I started by launching a digital health company out of university, worked as a junior VC, led a startup accelerator and ended up helping a growth-stage startup scale to 300+ people.

Before we dive into each role, there are 2 key aspects to keep in mind.

#1 Every career decision is a set of hypothesis

With every career choice, you are betting on a future outcome and investing your time to make it happen. Only if your hypotheses are true, your role will be a success but if you don’t have them clear beforehand, you’re in for a bumpy journey:

Taking an engineering role at a large company as a way to connect with engineers working at other companies and build a peer network is a bad bet
Taking an analyst job in a VC firm to build your network might work out if they let you out of the office
Working at a university TTO hoping to get a lot of freedom and drive new decisions is almost always an unlikely outcome

#2 Understand your relationship with money

This is key! It will determine every career choice you make so don’t underestimate it (most people do).

Why? Because everyone works for money.

If you don’t believe me, ask yourself or anyone else around you “Would you do the same job if you were not paid?”

99% of people will say no. By definition, they work for money.

Of course, it’s not all black and white and there is a big difference between needing money to survive and saving to buy a new house but if you’re not clear with yourself about the role of money, you’ll keep making poor career decisions.

Now let’s dive in.

The 4 roles of the startup world

They can be organized based on risks and rewards:

Investor: low career risk - low financial reward - high growth
Operator: medium career risk - medium financial reward - medium growth
Founder: high career risk - high financial reward - high growth
Support: low career risk - low financial reward - medium growth

Investor

As an analyst/associate in a VC firm, everybody will admire you and may also be jealous (low career risk) but you won’t get access to any fund carry (low financial reward).

Being promoted to a partner at a firm is extremely rare (VC firms are similar to law firms in this regard) but you’ll get a chance to build an incredible network and a lot of doors will open to you afterwards, no matter which direction you choose.

Operator

Operators are startup employees who decide to trade the stability of a large company for a more dynamic environment and higher financial return.

Contrary to investors, most operators get stock options as part of their compensation. If the company goes well, they might make millions.

Based on the role, career growth will vary. External-facing employees also get the chance of building powerful connections but this is not very common as these roles are usually taken by founders.

In any case, personal growth within the company is usually the key advantage here. If the company is growing, you’ll get the chance to grow with it and there is nothing like being part of a rocketship.

Founder

Founders obviously take the highest risk for the highest reward.

Especially in the early days, everything can go wrong and there is no promise of a stable salary until you reach certain milestones.

Most founders make no “real” money before the company inevitably fails but the ones who succeed can become billionaires in a single generation.

Career growth is also unparalleled. Failing is part of the startup life so even after shutting down a company, founders usually don’t have any problems in finding another job, either by starting another company with people who have met along the journey or joining a pre-existing team.

Support

Accelerators, incubators, Technology Transfer Offices and many public organizations that help the startup community belong to the support category. They are not actively involved in any single company but they provide the important fabric upon which startups, relationships and investments are built.

A lot of these companies are funded by governments or large organizations so working there offers you a lot of stability but there is no equity/profit participation for someone who joins them.

To compensate for low career risk and low financial reward, you could get good career growth opportunities as you are a neutral participant in the ecosystem who is ready to help multiple sides. If you’re good at building relationships, this a great position to become a “super-connector” and get involved in a lot of interesting projects.

❝

“The higher the risk, the higher the potential reward”

The immutable law of (startup) careers

What should you choose?

Many people associate startups with risk and yes, they are riskier than most large companies. But most of this risk is on the shoulders of founders and they are the vast minority of people in the startup world.

Almost everyone working in the startup world is a startup employee who has a job that is not that risky.

So if you’re new to all of this, I’d recommend starting your journey in the startup world by getting a job at a Series A startup with 15 to 30 employees.

It’s the best way to get a taste of it and the easiest path to branch out to other roles later on if you want to.

Otherwise, if you already know your attitude to risk and financial rewards, you should go ahead and pick a specific path:

Can you tolerate career risk if it means freedom and a huge potential financial reward? Try launching your own company
Do you value stability but thrive in innovative projects? Join a startup as an employee
Do you have an interest in the financial aspects of startup investing and prefer big-picture thinking over nitty-gritty details? Try out an investor career

Beyond my advice, if you didn’t get a chance to try any startup role yet, your best bet is to ask someone who is currently doing what you want to do.

Pick someone who is 5-7 years ahead of you and ask yourself:

“Do I want to be like him?”
“What would I give to swap places with this person tomorrow?”

On the other end, a simple way to realize if a career path is not for you is if you don’t want the career (and life) of someone ahead of you on the same path.

Avoid asking people who are 20+ years ahead of you because the world was completely different when they were coming up and their advice is usually anachronistic.

Making sure you want to become like the people you’re learning from is a simple but underrated hack for a great career.

This week's top scientific reads

Mouse Daydreams Shape Reactions (Nature)
Breath Test: Early Lung Cancer Detection (Science Advances)
A vibrating weight-loss capsule (Science Advances)
A mouse with two biological dads (The Guardian)
Ultrasounds to boost Alzheimer's medication (The New England Journal of Medicine)

Read my comments on these articles here.

Latest European funding rounds in health & bio

Ready to turn this news into your next career opportunity? Here is how

Enyo Pharma raised €38M for their drug assets against viral infections and autoimmune diseases, starting with the Alport syndrome 🇫🇷
Carcinotech raised €460k to manufacture 3D-printed tumour assays to advance drug discovery and testing before in-vivo experiments 🇬🇧
Matisse Pharmaceutical raised €3.6M for their pipeline of early-stage assets targeting sepsis and septic shock 🇳🇱
CardioMech closed a €12M Series A to advance their technology for mitral valve chordal repair 🇳🇴
FA Bio raised €6.1M for their superior microbial products that improve soil health and crop production 🇬🇧
Vico Therapeutics closed a €55M Series B for their antisense oligonucleotide platform targeting severe neurological diseases 🇳🇱
Self Space raised €2.6M for their flexible therapy service that you can use both in-person or online 🇬🇧

If you enjoyed this issue, share it with someone who is deciding their career path!