How To Find Thousands of Hiring Startups

JOB SEARCH STRATEGY
HELP - THERE ARE NO STARTUP JOBS!

Do you have thousands of companies filling your inbox with requests for you to join their team?

Oh, you don’t?

Well then, you’re like most people.

Instead, you’re probably praying to the job board gods to serve you the perfect role.

You’ve brought your lukewarm cup of coffee this morning as tribute, so they’ll see you as worthy of becoming the next breakout unicorn employee.

But the job board gods are cruel.

They aren’t serving you the amazing career-accelerating startup roles you want.

So… what to do?

There are a few reasons you’re likely not seeing the jobs you hope for.

1. The startup isn’t posting online because it’s expensive

2. The startup has contracted a search firm that isn’t posting the role

3. The company isn’t hiring due to the fundraising environment

There’s also a high probability chance it’s number 4, 5, and 6…

4. You just don’t know what you’re looking for

5. You don’t know where to find lists of companies you like

6. You don’t know what to do once you’ve found them

Now that you know some of the likely causes…

Let’s help you find lists of hundreds (possibly thousands) of hiring startups that match the specific company characteristics you’re looking for.

EARLY ACCELERATOR
WANT ME TO SEND YOU HUNDREDS OF STARTUPS TO TARGET?

You can read about how to create the list yourself below or…

You can click the button below, fill out the types of companies you’re looking for, and I’ll send you a list of up to 250 companies matching that description (for free).

WHAT’S GOING ON
WHY JOB LISTINGS MIGHT BE SCARCE.

There are two key traits of successful startups.

They’re efficient with cash and picky when adding people to their team.

Why do those translate into you not seeing any postings?

There are three major reasons.

1) Early-Stage Companies and Budget Constraints

Startups in the early stages (let’s call it pre-seed, seed, and even A) are like you at your first junior high dance. 

Out there looking for someone interested and desperately trying to keep dancing without falling on their face.

Every cent they have raised is precious to the company.

Posting jobs on LinkedIn, Otta, Wellfound, and all the other obscure niche job boards can get expensive.

So instead of posting on those job boards, what do they do?

They create a careers page and post the job there.

Then, they contact their network to see if anyone knows someone perfect for the job.

This is why there are so many instances of people landing roles at early-stage companies without applying online.

It’s how I landed a startup VP role.

During my job search, I was speaking regularly with a mentor of mine from the early Uber days.

He knew a group of Israeli founders out of Y-Combinator who were scaling their business in New York.

He connected me with the founders. 

I shared information about my experience.

They shared information about the company’s operations and what they needed. 

By the end of the next week, I had signed an offer and was the VP of Operations.

No application. No resume submission. Nothing.

This is great if you have a startup fairy job mother who’s well-connected and speaks to founders constantly. 

But if you don’t, you’ll never know these roles exist because you don’t know the companies exist.

The solution to this issue…

It’s all about finding the companies that match your ideal company description so you can check their career pages and go on offense (a.k.a. send messages telling them why they should hire you).

2) Head Hunter Hyjinx

This week I was chatting with a few startup recruiters who run agencies.

They both said the same thing.

When contracted to search for an executive position, the position is almost never posted online.

(GASP!)

Instead, they search their network and LinkedIn to find people with the specific traits that the founders are looking for.

Even if you found this company’s career page you still would leave disappointed, not knowing that they’re hiring for your exact background.

So what do you do?

In this case, knowing about the company is not enough. 

You also must have an updated LinkedIn profile that highlights the keywords and case studies your target companies are looking for.

And… be open and willing to send cold outreach to the founders to show them you’re the perfect person for the job they don’t have posted.

3) Tightening The Belt

The final reason you may not be seeing startup job postings at companies in your industry is that unlike the boom times of 2021, when cash flowed like wine and VCs instinctively flocked like the salmon of Capistrano… money is much harder to come by.

As a result, teams are doing more with less (meaning fewer people).

To get around this, you can focus on companies that raised money recently.

Focusing on companies that have recently raised money (in the last 3 to 12 months) has two benefits.

• They are flush with cash committed to helping them grow the company, which often goes to bringing on new team members.

• They had to raise money in this challenging fundraising environment, so there’s a higher likelihood their underlying business fundamentals are sound (or at least more sound than they were in 2021 when some VCs didn’t run any due diligence before making an investment).

HOW TO
FIND THOUSANDS OF HIRING STARTUPS.

At this point, you can see that relying on job boards won’t expose you to all the potential startup opportunities.

Instead, you’ll be going on offense.

To do that, you need to find a list of hundreds or thousands of companies that match the characteristics of the companies you’re looking for and be able to tell when they last raised money.

Here’s how to do that…

1. Identify the stage of startup you’re targeting.

   • If you want a description of the company stages you can read this and this.

2. Identify the size of startup you’re targeting.

3. Identify the industry or verticals that you’re most interested in.

   • Here’s how many VC-backed startups are in the US in just a handful of verticals…

     • AI/ML: 46,641

     • Beauty: 2,218

     • Big Data: 24,123

     • CleanTech: 41,531

     • Digital Health: 8,807

     • E-Commerce: 44,733

     • EdTech: 17,348

     • FinTech: 42,893

     • Gaming: 13,261

     • HealthTech: 26,346

     • HR Tech: 9,115

     • LOHAS & Wellness: 35,425

     • Pet Tech: 1,124

     • Real Estate Tech: 9,340

     • SaaS: 95,520

     • Wearables & Qualified Self: 3,353

   • Hopefully, this gives you an idea of how much opportunity there is out there.

4. Identify the role or roles you’re targeting.

   • You want to know the title(s) and the core responsibilities you’re looking for.

   • Also, be able to identify how your existing experience will set you up for success in this role and at this specific company.

5. Finally, start a free trial on CrunchBase and sign up for the most premium plan with all the data download add-ons you want (make sure to set a calendar reminder to cancel your subscription before the 7 days are up).

6. In Crunchbase, perform an Advanced Search

   1. Search for the industries in “Description Keywords” or in the “Industry” field

   2. Slide the number of employees to your target employee count.

   3. In “Financials”, select your target stage in “Last Funding Type”

   4. In “Company Type” > “Operating Status” select “Active”

   5. In “Company Type” > “IPO Status” select “Private”

   6. Click on the Try Query Builder button at the bottom of the Filters section to add columns for

      1. Total funding

      2. Last funding date

      3. Last funding amount

      4. Last known valuation

      5. Top investors

      6. Company website

      7. Company HQ location

      8. Year founded

      9. Employee count

      10. Last layoff date

7. Download CSV’s of the hundreds and possibly thousands of companies and company details that match your ideal industry, size, and stage.

8. Add the list of companies to a job tracker or CRM.

9. Click on each company website to identify if the product is one you want to work on.

   • Add each of these companies to a list.

10. Click on their careers page to identify if they are currently hiring for roles you’re targeting.

    • If they are hiring for your role add a note they are hiring.

    • If they aren’t hiring for your role add a note they’re not hiring.

11. Apply to all the roles that are open at companies with products you think are cool.

    • Follow up on each application by reaching out to the hiring manager, recruiter, founder, and other relevant team members.

       

12. Create a contact list of relevant connections at the companies without open roles and start contacting them.

    • Your goal here is to show them you know who they are, you think they’re cool, you have relevant experience that will help them, and that even though they’re not hiring for the role right now, it would be valuable to get to know each other.

If you have completed all of the steps above, then you will now have hundreds and potentially thousands of companies to reach out to.

Many of them will be hiring for the position you’re looking for.

Many of them won’t have a posting, but you can speak with the team members to learn they need someone with your skills, experience, and passion for the mission.

More importantly, you’ll be taking your job search into your own hands and will be empowered with all the data you need to be self-reliant instead of relying on a job board to magically serve you the ideal job.

Should you still use job boards and set up alerts?

Of course, you should use all resources at your disposal.

But the approach above will ensure an almost endless list of opportunities.

The startup job seekers who I have seen land the best roles in the least amount of time have been playing offense.

They actively took the steps above to identify companies they were interested in and go after them instead of hoping the perfect opportunity would land in their lap.

So go out there and take action.

And let’s become career champions together 🏆

Kyle