How Do I Find A Job After My Start-Up Fails? 

“When I shut down my company, I felt like a failure in many ways” – from “A Former Founder’s Guide to Getting Hired” by Sam Kane

BLOG POST BY TIM TONELLA

I talk countless times per week to start-up founders, many of whom have raised a Series A financing or, in some cases, are just beginning the seed funding stage. Point in fact, many of these companies – for countless reasons – will never make it long term. When that final day of reckoning comes and you happen to be in the Captain’s Chair, will you have a game plan to turn the next page? What role will you pursue next? Will your start-up’s “failure” be perceived as a blemish? How are you going to handle the proverbial elephant in the room?

This blog posting from entrepreneur Sam Kane really hits on many of these issues that plague risk takers who find themselves on the downside of a challenge that just didn’t work out. I coach tech company CEOs and co-founders nightly on strategies for finding their next role. One of my key pieces of advice is to start your initial contact process (directly reaching out to board members and or company CEOs/influencers of interest) by finding common ground on issues that have equal EMOTIONAL appeal. Rather than making an immediate business case for why you could add value to their company, just get the conversation going around non-business issues – kids, hobbies, comments on their social media content, etc.

Once someone begins to positively engage with you around a “human interest,” they will be more open to eventually hearing your business pitch. Perhaps even more important however, they will be less likely to emphasize the negative aspects of your previous startup’s outcome and focus more on the learning and growth experience you developed as a result.

Read the full article by Sam Kane at: medium.com