Questions regarding all things related to employment of people in the company.
306
votes
27answers
138k views
If I'm working at a company, do they have intellectual property rights to the stuff I do in my spare time?
I was interviewed by a lady from Zynga and she told me that Zynga doesn't allow developers to have side projects. Is this true for companies in general, or just a minority that Zynga is a part of? ...
90
votes
39answers
18k views
What fun and low-cost fringe benefits/perks would you offer to employees?
Let's face it. As startups, we can't really offer top-dollar salaries to our employees. But we can offer some fun benefits that the big companies can't/won't. Here are a few that we have that seem to ...
36
votes
13answers
8k views
Using your startup on your resume while job-hunting?
I have a very new solo startup that doesn't make any money (yet...), but it's time to get a "real job" so that I can pay the bills. I'm very proud of the work I did on my startup and think that it ...
26
votes
8answers
6k views
Ideal office space layout - open or offices?
I have worked in a variety of environments wanted to share my opinions and see what others thought on the subject of ideal office space layout. Once our lease is up (in a few years) I am thinking of ...
16
votes
14answers
6k views
Should I put my “startup” experience on my resume?
I have a similar question to this one regarding putting your "startup" on your resume. I have a full time job and started a small company on the side. My startup isn't a product company - I've been ...
15
votes
10answers
2k views
Have you seen problems with “unmetered” paid-time-off?
I've never been a fan of counting vacation days, sick days, personal days, or whatever you want to call them. It's irked me to no end that, given X number of paid-time-off days at past jobs, I'd have ...
11
votes
7answers
4k views
First employee at Y Combinator funded company
I may have the chance to be the first employee of a startup going to the YC summer 2011 program.
The thing is I think they are planning to cover my expenses but not to actually pay me or offer any ...
11
votes
9answers
1k views
How to deal with key employee who didn't show up for work?
I run a small consulting company, four people. Myself and another employee were out of the office on business today, the third was on a requested and agreed upon vacation. The fourth did not show up ...
11
votes
6answers
1k views
How to reward early employees?
In many startups there are some #1 or #2 employees who helped the whole business all the way.
I've got couple guys like that, I'd love to give them more than the salary (even though our salaries are ...
11
votes
9answers
838 views
Tips for running a virtual office
Having a virtual company empowers you to hire talent anywhere in the world and manage a team of employees using the wonders of modern technology. I have personally worked this way since January and ...
10
votes
23answers
2k views
Getting a New Hire to Work More
We recently hired a junior developer as employee #1 at our startup. He's doing a great job on all fronts (produces good work, gets along with team, etc.) with one exception--he isn't working long ...
10
votes
15answers
1k views
Employee abusing sick leave
We have a very important employee at our startup who has been consistently abusing sick days. Unfortunately being a small company we would have a very hard time replacing him at this point but his ...
10
votes
2answers
441 views
Does the concept of “Unlimited Vacation” increase productivity and attract talented employees?
Does the concept of "Unlimited Vacation" increase productivity and attract talented employees ?
I've read about it here, specifically:
Unlimited vacation fosters productivity and loyalty because ...
9
votes
12answers
2k views
What are the pros and cons of employees that work remotely?
What are the considerations as we consider employees that would work remotely? I'm particularly thinking about technical positions (programming, web site maintenance) that are remote due to geography ...
9
votes
14answers
638 views
How do you allow staff to indicate they don't want to be interrupted?
We work in a small open plan office with around 20 staff. A lot of the work we do involves writing fairly technical documents and it is therefore important to allow people to sit down free from ...
9
votes
4answers
301 views
Contractors Vs Employees
As a UK based tech start up working on a social app, what are the pros and cons of hiring contractors on a full time basis to build the app, against hiring the same people as employees?
Edit:
Let me ...
7
votes
8answers
763 views
How to get the passion back and to stay focused and organized?
I've been running my business for 3 years now. It's grown substantially and doing quite well but I seem to be losing the passion of running the business. I'm interested in doing newer things but need ...
7
votes
4answers
4k views
Do employees get paid during the time a business is closed for renovations?
I'm curious if a company has to (or if it is normal to) pay their employees if they, for instance, close the business for a while for renovations.
For a specific case, say a restaurant closes for a ...
7
votes
8answers
2k views
Why would someone work in a startup?
I think the most essential question to ask before recruiting someone to work for your startup is to ask their main motivation to work in a startup.
Those of you that have experiences with recruiting ...
6
votes
8answers
858 views
As an employer should we care about the employee's welfare?
Do you think as an employer we should care about the employee's welfare? Should we care about our employees' financial difficulties, and raise their salaries [i.e because prices are going up] or lend ...
6
votes
7answers
466 views
Potential offer as first employee at startup, worth it?
I am a software engineer with about 2 years experience and currently at a big tech company. I have an offer to join a startup that has just received seed funding of 250k and they're about 6 months ...
6
votes
15answers
8k views
What PEO providers are out there other than TriNet? What questions should I ask potential PEO providers? [closed]
Looking at PEO (professional employee organization) providers - just wanted to get a sense for who else is out there other than TriNet. I only know about TriNet from Feld's AskTheVC blog: ...
6
votes
3answers
3k views
How much in stock options should we offer new employees?
We're a software startup with annual revenue in the ballpark of half a million. We're completely bootstrapped, and have no current plans to take funding. We currently have 4 employees. We're ...
6
votes
2answers
303 views
Is it ethical for an employee to start a similar business?
Is ethical for an employee quitting to start a similar business?
What do you think?
6
votes
5answers
232 views
How should the next generation of employees be?
I recently read a news article (in Norwegian) that "the ability to cooperate" was essentially the only requirement for applicants, which was just as relevant 50 years ago as it is today, while ...
6
votes
3answers
5k views
As a member of an LLC, how do I pay myself a salary? 1099 or W-2?
If I am a member of my LLC can I be paid as an employee and be on a payroll? Is this different in each state or is it federally regulated? If our LLC is to have employees do we need a different number ...
6
votes
1answer
312 views
How to fire people but still maintain a happy/friendly work-space?
People come and go in a startup very often. Even if you try your best to find best talents, there's no guarantee that they are a good fit for your company in a long run.
The present culture of hiring ...
5
votes
10answers
2k views
What is the elegant way to quit your current job for your startup?
I'm sure many of you have been in this situation before, where you want to quit your day job to focus more on the startup you have built.
Currently I'm having a hard way to tell my employer that I ...
5
votes
7answers
427 views
As a potential employee, should I frown on “zerg hiring”?
In my job hunt, it's incredibly common for me to run into startups that have say 3 people and then have the CTO tell me "We just closed a round of funding, so we're looking to hire 3 or 4 more ...
5
votes
7answers
974 views
Advice/Resources on Performance Reviews for Employees
We're getting ready to formalize our processes around employee reviews and I wondered if anyone had some great advice and/or links to articles/resources that are valuable on the subject. I've never ...
5
votes
4answers
646 views
How to quit full-time job for startup?
My co-founder and I met each other at our current company. However, we are intending on quitting our jobs within the next few weeks for our startup. The startup and our current employer are in two ...
5
votes
4answers
356 views
Do websites with pictures of people on the first page make the company look more “human”
Do websites with pictures of people on the first page make the company look more "human", therefore contributing to the success of the product or service the web site tries to promote?
Short story:
I ...
5
votes
4answers
125 views
A lawyer offered service for equity and potentially joining the company
A lawyer offered service for equity and potentially joining the company full time as legal counsel/business dev guy. Is this reasonable? What percentage of the company should I offer him? It's a ...
5
votes
6answers
835 views
As an potential employee: what are the most important questions to ask when interviewing for a Startup?
I've work in my fair share of startups, and even today I feel like on every new one I still miss some important questions on the interview process:
Financial: What is the burn rate, runway as the ...
5
votes
4answers
316 views
How to attract talent as startup?
What are the best ways in attracting talent to a startup? Is it salary, a cool brand, a cool office or something else? Equity is pretty much a standard so I'm looking for some other tips.
A while ...
5
votes
3answers
130 views
Holiday gifts for employees
I am pretty bad with gifts and in the past years I was awarding monetary bonuses to folks who work with us. I am not particularly keen on the idea of bonuses mostly due to the fact that we can't quite ...
5
votes
4answers
202 views
How to expand our workforce from 1 technical 'guru' to a productive team of 6
Like many fellow startups that we know, we've started like with one technical wizard who know a lot of stuff and who knows now where everything is and how it works. The system has undergone a lot of ...
5
votes
6answers
282 views
DIY Payroll Processing?
I have tried (and been rejected by) a few online payroll solutions. As I am about to start (very soon) working with real employees, I need to find a way to do payroll more or less manually (though I ...
5
votes
2answers
1k views
Compensation for co-founders and employees in a startup
In my earlier venture attempts, the scenario was something like 3 guys, each of whom would get 33.3%. I found out soon that this was silly because as soon as one of us lost interest, he could do ...
5
votes
3answers
654 views
Proper procedure for providing references for former employees
I'm the founder of a company and I recently received a call for a reference check on one of our former employees. I'm wondering what standard protocol for handling these. I've heard that in many ...
5
votes
4answers
161 views
Talking about fundraising with employees
I'm in the middle of raising money for my startup. We have had some initial success (and lots of failed attempts!), and are getting close to finalizing our round. We are a very small company right ...
5
votes
3answers
194 views
Are there Internet startups that became successful without enormous time commitment from employees?
The software and Internet startup companies I've worked for required 60, 80, or more hours a week of their employees (not just founders), for extended periods of time, up to a year. Are there examples ...
5
votes
3answers
393 views
Where/how do I find sales people, in the United States, to work for my start-up. Is there a website for this kind of situation
My start-up is finally coming together; however, I am in dire need of a solid sales team to go out into the market and attract customers. I want to pay them per store they sign-up. Can anyone refer me ...
4
votes
12answers
2k views
Advice about an offer at a startup company
So here's the situation:
I was discovered by a startup company through some of my work. I was interviewed by one of the cofounders, and they were interested in putting me on their team full-time.
My ...
4
votes
6answers
488 views
Is it fair to go home 5 o'clock sharp so you can have more time to do your startup?
I saw this response in other thread that in order for you to get more time to build your startup, you should go home right ontime (5 o'clok sharp) everyday if you're still working for someone else. ...
4
votes
9answers
509 views
Are interns worthwhile?
Derek's question inspired another question... for a small startup (bigger than a one-man shop, but less than a dozen) are interns worthwhile?
In my experience, I've run into a few issues:
...
4
votes
5answers
384 views
How to convince employees of small business to make a difference in the world?
I am owner of a small start up web+mobile development company. We are 2 full time programmers (including myself) and 4 part time programmers. I asked my team a question: Do you think it's important ...
4
votes
7answers
1k views
How can I transition my employer to being a consulting client?
I'm thinking about different options for my startup. Currently I'm a full time employee at a company where I love to work, but I would also like to have something of my own. The idea is to have ...
4
votes
2answers
480 views
Staff numbers “rules of thumb”
I am looking for "rules of thumb", or estimates for the numbers of staff required for a startup through growth.
For example how many developers per manager, how many support staff per customer, how ...
4
votes
2answers
438 views
What are the key qualities you look for in a candidate for startups?
I know that it is very difficult to gauge a candidate's attitude / work ethics from the start. What are the most important things you look for a candidate that will be fit for a startup software ...
