Ask HN: How do you evaluate a start up?

[slowbait]

I've been considering leaving my current job at Google, for a more fulfilling role, where I feel I'm having a positive impact on society, e.g. Recidiviz.

I also plan to start a family in a couple of years, so I'd like to find a stable job with good work-life balance and nice benefits for my family.

So, what things should I look for to know if a start up job will be stable? Have good life work balance, and good benefits?

[matijash]

Startups can definitely vary a lot in this regard. From the top of my head, this would be the best way(s) to evaluate a startup:

1) You know founders personally or worked with them before 2) You know somebody who is working in the startup That way you can have first-hand info and get pretty reliable feeling on how things are working.

If that is not an option, you can of course evaluate the available data - company size (the bigger it is, the more stable it is probably) etc.

But I think at this point it is pretty much a lottery also - you just won't know for sure until you start. Things can differ a lot in different teams and it matters who you work directly with.

The same happened to us when hiring - somebody may look great during the interviews, but then when you start working together the problems emerge. And then you feel "how is it possible I haven't realized this before?".

The same with the founders - from the outside they can sound very convincing and confident about what they do, but in the inside it might be a totally different story.

Hope this was somewhat helpful! At the end of the day, you can always try something and if doesn't work change it, I believe that is still a better option than staying put somewhere where you don't feel content or challenged enough.