Ask HN: When interviewing with a startup, is it okay to ask about funding? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: When interviewing with a startup, is it okay to ask about funding?

3 pointsdannykansas7 comments

I may have an interview with a startup in the next few weeks. I'm utterly unfamiliar with how an interview with a startup progresses, so I'm doing my best to educate myself on the company (as usual) but also on how startup culture as a whole may impact things.

A chief concern of mine is how well-funded the company is, and what their forecasts are for future funding rounds. Is this a totally off-limits topics, or is there a graceful way to delve into a discussion about funding?

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Yes, that is totally appropriate; in fact, not asking would make you seem naive. (But check Crunchbase and other sources to get publicly available info first)

Introduce the questions with something like "I'd like to get a sense of what the company's long-term future is and what the current state of development is."

> check Crunchbase and other sources to get publicly available info first

This. The best way to ask about funding is to do a web search, take all the publicly available data, and do your own rough back-of-the envelope calculation of how much runway the company has. It doesn't matter if this number is wildly off, just that it's defensible in light of the publicly available information. Then say, "Based on the info I found on the web I figured that you have about X months of runway. Am I anywhere close to being correct?"

Great, glad to hear (and that phrasing is excellent for raising the topic).

I could Google around, but you seem knowledgeable - is there a quick primer you're aware of that would get me to a conversational understanding of startup financing / VC funding?

Absolutely ok.

I interviewed with a company last year which would not tell me either how much money they'd raised or where the money came from. They just kept responding "we have plenty of runway, you don't need to worry about the money", which had the opposite effect of course. I could never shake the feeling that their mystery funder was writing personal checks to cover day to day expenses and payroll.

A year later and they are still looking for a CTO.

I don't think it's off limits at all. They're a startup and you should be welcome to ask them about their goals and status on any aspect from funding to the actual product itself.

I interviewed at a startup not too long ago and the interviewer actually brought up their funding so you may not even have to ask :)

If you are going to be paid (even just in part) with stock options, you are investing, so do your "due diligence"!

Good perspective. It's very likely that options will be part of the compensation.

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