Must do homework well before joining Startup.

Working for a Startup is the new trend in India job market. With rising entrepreneurship, professionals are increasingly shifting their job base to startups from established firms. And the reasons are obvious. Challenge to do something new with freedom for experimentation drive people to startups. However, professionals should also enquirer about a few things about the startups before joining it. 

1- Will the founders get along when the going gets tough?

             It is critical to know the background or history of founders. How did thee meet? Have they worked together before? what brought them together for this specific opportunity? Too many startup fails  not because market forces, but because the founders simply could not agree important issue. You should ask questions to get to the heart of whether the founders are likely to get along.

2- Will you get along with the Startups?

       Startup teams are usually a close-knit group. There's nowhere to hide. If you don't get along with just about everyone there, life is going to be hard. Most recruits will determine whether they respect the founders and other team members (in terms of experience, accomplish mints,intelligence among others) but just as important as all of this stuff is the simple question of: "Do i like these people?". If you can't see alongside them for 60+ hours a week for several years, think twice.

3- Do some ground work about the basic idea?

        This is important to do some research about the basic concept behind the business plan. Often the founders have not yet had a chance to really think through the idea fully. If you are joining a startup, you should have some idea how about founding team got the concept and whether the concept can be transferred to a successful business model or not.

4- How strong is the balance sheet? What is cash position?

        If a startup is venture-backed, it should not too difficult to find out who the investors are and how much capital was raised. In most cases , this information publicly available, for bootstraps, this line of questioning can be little uncomfortable. Nevertheless, one should do some market research to get an idea about the critics issues.

5- What are the founders looking to get from the effort?

       Try and move beyond the platitudes and cliches. Seriously, what do they really want to get from the startup? Building a world famous product? Make a ton of money? Take a company public? raise capital from top-tier V Cs? Get a chance to work with their friend? There is no right answer, but the key is making sure their is party across the founders. At some level, they need to have similar goals or their will likely be a fair amount of conflict.