#1 thing is to realize that they are going to leverage the fuck out of the fact that it's a startup as much as they can; they will pay you shit, but say they're making up for it by offering you options, as if becoming Google is a sure-thing. Usually, in their mind, they cannot fail, so the options they are offering you will make them feel like they are doing you a favour. They're not. Feel free to be grateful, but understand that they are useless pieces of paper until such time as you can convince someone to buy them. That usually never happens. UNDERSTAND those options. What's the valuation of the company? How realistic is it? (Hint: it's not realistic at all). What's the exit strategy? Can the options be diluted moving forward? At what price are they being offered? What Venture Capital do they have in the company? Is there outside capital, or is it all self-funded? What's the burn rate? How long do they have in the bank at current burn-rate? Be aware that early-hired staff at a start-up are usually the ones that are the most passionate about it, and will take the biggest risks for the lowest cash. If the start-up becomes at all successful, they will get some funding, and then they will hire people at market value, not at "but-we're-a-startup" rates... and if you're early, you will get fucked, 9 out of 10 times, because they will rebel against giving you a 150% raise to get you up to those market values... they will want to keep paying you at the shit rate they initially got you at. Be aware of that going in, and ask for assurances that this won't happen, or will be handled when the time comes that they get cash. Get it in writing. If they're offended, fuck them... good contracts make good friends. You really have to trust in the start-up... most founders are pathological and will lie to your face about how fucking awesome everything is and you won't know shit is sideways until your most recent paycheck bounces. Really, REALLY judge the fuck out of the co-founders; are they people that you can trust? Do your due diligence on them, first and foremost. Do they have a shady, shitty past? Are they standup people? Have they tried and failed at this before? If so, track down some of the old employees and see how they handled the failure and shutdown of that previous gig. (Most people that do start-ups have done them many times in the past, usually not a good idea to be involved with people that are doing their first... there's so much to learn about what to and what not to do). Most new founders get stuck in the "it'll get better next week" cycle as they fail, and refuse to recognize and accept the innevitable, until they have zero cash left and they have no choice. What little they do have, they hoard for their own personal use to look after their family, and you are just a liability to them. So be sure that you have the visibility into things so you can see for yourself how the health of the company is doing, not just trust the word of the founders. Also keep a 1-2 month nest-egg on hand as soon as possible, preparing for that "my paycheck just bounced" day... odds are it will happen. Check out the board of directors; a good Board will make a startup, a bad one will sink it. How involved are the Board? What's their pedigree? I've been personally involved in the good and the bad around startups, had 4 of my own... and every past employee would jump at the chance to come to work for me again, based on how I handled their relative failures. I'm lucky enough now to be embedded in a seriously good performing start-up that is funded by the top 1% of VC's out of Silicon Valley, which I'm grateful for... but I've gone through a lot of shit start-ups to get here. Feel free to PM me with any and all questions you may have... I'm more than happy to answer them.
Oh... one other thing, more as a general job negotiation, which is a bit more effective with start-ups; if they can't pay you good cash, ask for more vacation time... most start-ups are blinded by the bottom line and are more than willing to throw in some extra days "for free". If they balk, talking about the options, ask them what kind of a guarantee comes with those options? If they say anything other than, "none", they're lying to your face.
I've been at a startup for the last three years (not sure at what point we stop being a start up and just become a pre-acquisition company). I wasn't one of the early early employees, but certainly early enough that it was still very start-uppy when I joined, and am now the fifth or sixth most tenured employee after the founders. Nett's advice is all solid, and he has a better grasp of the specific ups and downs. The general advice I can give you is that joining any startup is a risk, and should be embraced as such. Only do it if you're in a position in life where you're ok with your job suddenly disappearing; and make sure you get sufficient upside to take on that risk. Relationships are important at any job, but exponentially more so at a start up. In a company without defined processes that is rapidly growing, your relationships to the decision makers will influence the size of your raises and equity grants, the advancement opportunities that open up to you, and even the direction of the company itself.
One other thing I should mention is that when you're in a start-up, it's all-hands-on-deck for everything. The default position of everyone should be "how can I help", not "not my job". We have one of those "not-my-jobs" at work, but that's being handled this coming week. You will be throw into situations that you are inexperienced in, and feel uncomfortable with, and that's not for everyone. If you can look at a new scenario as a challenge and jump in and give it your all, then you'll probably thrive in a start-up, and the more you can do that, the more valuable you become. Value in a start-up, for the most part, is not in your specific job skills... it's in your ability to deal with the constant, unending shit that happens daily that is not within your skill set. Creativity in solving problems, the ability to be a true team player under stress (most people have no fucking clue what being a "team player" is other than a question at a job interview), and being able to be trusted to get your shit done with minimal oversight are key traits. It is damn refreshing to have "fire-and-forget" employees; people you can say, "I need this done, please go do it", and KNOWING that it will get done, and being able to then forget about it; it's amazing. If you are the type of person that requires a lot of oversight and management, you will not do well.
Looking for a graphic designer to make some overlays and a few 8bit characters for me. Pretty simple Photoshop/Gimp work. If you know someone who is reasonably affordable, send me a message. If they are aware of Twitch or have worked with OBS before, that would be a plus.
A friend of mine is an artist and has had his work blatantly stolen and is being sold on a website called wallpart.com. Apparently this site is ripping off artists left and right without permission, however he knows nothing about lawsuits and taking legal action. Nor do I. Could anybody lend some advice on what action he can take?
The place is physically located in Australia and given their "counter" I'd say they're pretty small. International action is usually pretty hard to take, though Australia apparently has a takedown procedure similar to the US if he wants to go that route. It looks like most of their results are actually just being pulled from public websites. That doesn't mean it's not illegal, but a first step would be to get your friend whose work is being stolen to update his website to reject all requests sent by the site. That will help if they aren't rehosting images (which it doesn't seem like they are). There are various ways to do it, if he's not hosting his own website he might have to contact his web host. Example: http://www.htaccess-guide.com/deny-visitors-by-referrer/ Second, he should use the Report Violation link on that site that's at the bottom of every image. They're literally just pulling public image results from search engines, I'm sure the Report Violation will just put exclusions into their search algorithm.
Satistics question: You have a bag containing 10 balls; 9 red and 1 green. For each trial you're going to pull balls out until you pull the green one, then record how many pulls it took to get the green ball. You'll repeat this an infinite amount of times. What's the mean number of pulls needed to get the green ball? Depending on the math I do I've gotten 5.5, 2.93, and 3.25. All of those may be wrong, because I can't remember how to do this kind of simulation.
Anyone have a 3d printer or have played with one? I want a new toy and wondering if anyone has any recommendations? Don't want anything super expensive, just a small home toy.
I've got a serious, non-sarcastic question about computers: How do I wipe the memory from a Sony laptop with windows 8? I have followed all of the instructions, but when I click on "Reformat Windows," I get an error message saying: "Files are missing. Your Windows installation or or recovery media will provide these files." The only option is "CANCEL" I don't have any additional files. Everything I've read online says that I should be able to reformat my computer as it sits. Somebody PLEASE tell me I'm just overlooking something, like an idiot. You can even call me out on being an idiot. I can take it.
Sounds like somehow your recovery partition is incomplete or otherwise problematic. Go here and use the site to create install media for the correct Windows version, the one you have a serial number for that's on a sticker somewhere on your PC (your sticker should say Windows 8, or Windows 8.1): http://www.howtogeek.com/186775/how-to-download-windows-7-8-and-8.1-installation-media-legally/ When you boot from that media, you should see the options to format your computer and start fresh. Alternately, you could upgrade to Windows 10 (which is a free upgrade), then format and reinstall. That would put you on a fresh install of Windows 10, which is pretty nice. See here: http://www.howtogeek.com/224342/how-to-clean-install-windows-10/
I'm thinking of buying a welder. I want to be able to do small fabrication, nothing too insane, and teaching myself to do it. Any idea what type of welder I should start with? Arc? MIG/Flux? TIG/Arc?
What's your budget? I bought one of these, and it fucking rocks... even has a plasma cutter: http://www.everlastwelders.ca/powerpro-206.php You can tig steel and aluminum (both AC/DC TIG, which is hard to find, as most entry level TIGs are DC only), stick weld, and plasma cut with it. All it's missing is MIG, but those are cheap-as-fuck at harbour freight ($300).
It all depends on budget. But these two are the best ones you can get for home use and a lot of welding shops even use them http://www.lincolnelectric.com/en-ca/Equipment/Pages/product.aspx?product=K3963-1(LincolnElectric) http://www.millerwelds.com/products/mig/product.php?model=M30024 Both of those are MVP(multi volt plugs, can run one 120v and 230v) both of them to MiG and Flux core, and both of them can use a spool gun for aluminum welding. But the Lincoln one can do TiG with optional equipment. I wouldn't worry about doing TiG welding at all for home use but it would be a nice option to have.
The only problem with that Lincoln is that they don't do AC TiG, and I wanted to be able to do aluminum, which required AC TiG. By the time I found a box that did AC/DC TiG, and then added in a plasma cutter, the Everlast I posted made the most sense... it was about 1/2 the cost of getting two separate units. And I already had a cheap-ass MiG box that I could do ugly flux-core or shielded with. Sure, the cutter isn't a HyperTherm quality cutter, but it does great work for the type of stuff I'm fucking around with.
You just need to buy a spool gun for either of them to do aluminum. http://www.lincolnelectric.com/en-c...roducttype=gt&detail=K3269-1(LincolnElectric) http://www.millerwelds.com/products/wire_feeders/spoolmate_100_series/
Aluminum TiG? I know you can do it with Helium, but it's a pain. You really need AC in order to get proper cleaning action for the aluminum welding.