Subcultures

One of my favorite essays of all time is accomplished game designer Greg Costikyan's account of attending the pay-to-pitch New England Venture Summit as a first-time entrepreneur raising money. Coming from the self-described subculture of "science fiction fandom", Greg illustrates the conference as "[a] variation on that basic [subculture] motif". His opening observation on subcultures is worth repeating. Like Greg, I grew up as a part of a subculture. It happened to be online gaming, although the particular choice doesn't really matter; subcultures are ubiquitous online and off. Now I'm part of a different subculture -- scalable startups*. And it's just as much of a subculture as anything else.

This isn't just a semantic point. Lots of people casually refer to this community of entrepreneurs as the startup "industry". But it isn't an industry; it's a subculture. Like any subculture, it has its own unique vocabulary, memes, and shared historical narratives and ideologies. It has its own heroes and villains, values and virtues. Healthcare, education and telecom are industries -- within them they share trends and players, but from a social perspective are diverse and decentralized.

From the perspective of someone seeking a job at a startup, this distinction means that admission is granted to the startup subculture through a different means than if it were an industry. This is especially relevant to anyone who is trying to land a job at a young tech company but lacks programming or design skills. Submitting a resume will get you next to nowhere. Spending time meeting people and reading up on topics startups care about (which can easily be found on Hacker News) is a more efficient way in the door.

This doesn't mean you need to be part of the scene. It just means you have to use different means than typical; means that may seem more analogous to a journalist wiggling into the long-haul trucker subculture than a recent college grad trying to get a job. So when someone approaches me looking for advice on getting a job at a startup, I tell them to think of the problem less like getting hired by Goldman or McKinsey and more like getting established as a writer or artist. After all, one could say that what many entrepreneurs are doing is a new kind of art.

* I specifically refer to the subculture as "scalable" startups to differentiate from, say, the affiliate marketing and lead gen world (which is a fascinating subculture in and of itself). But it's a total different feel, with its own vocabulary and values.