10 Type of Startups You Should Never Join

A lot of us get fascinated by Startups and always relate startup with challenging work, open-culture, rewards,innovation and fast growth. But there are startups which somehow are not good to work with due to different reasons. There are some basic ingredients which are very much required for any good startup. I am highligthing 10 type of startups which are not worth exploring ( The idea here is not to criticize startups but to make entrepreneurs/job-seekers aware of various sensitive issues):

1. Sharing " Not our Policy " - Some startups do have this kind of mentality. They think their idea and participation is the foremost and ultimate thing. This mentality is evident right from the beginning. Even during initial interaction these startups keep on asking thousands of question to you. But when you ask few questions,they become annoyed or decline to answer politely. Openness is one of the foremost rule of any business. Any startup is run by a set of people,and gauging their attitude and mind-set is very important. The people with wrong mindset won't share important details like revenues, sales target, available funding, growth-path etc. with you even at very advanced stage. Never-ever think of joining any such Startup. These people won't be fair with you during any stage of your engagement.

2. We all are leaders, but can't pay for your tea : Few startups do have good people as founder members, but they can't take any decision. They look for others before taking final call over any matter. They believe in several rounds of discussion even for very small issues. Most of them don't have guts to face any adverse situation and failure. They believe that group-thinking is always required and hence take huge amount of time to solve petty issues. Successful Startups are known for their responsiveness and agility. The top-management is very fast at taking decisions and always don't require consent of whole group. There are few cheer-leaders who take decisions quickly, keeping in mind internal and external factors. These startups are typically very slow moving and you may not enjoy working there.

3. We are the best, you can't compete : The founder members believe that they are best at doing everything. Anyone joining new will always be second to them. These people never trust others and always believe in doing work by themselves. Any startup which wants to grow faster should get good people and give them quality work. Any good founder should hire people who are smarter than him/her. The growth of any startup lies in the hand of every person associated with them directly or indirectly. Founder members should always groom future leaders within the company. Shared responsibilities and rewards would always help startup to scale-up faster. Any startup which gives less priority to meritocracy should be avoided without giving any second thought.

4. Vision Statement is only for website : You should never join a startup which thinks that Vision Statement is just a statement. If founder members are not visionaries then definitely that is not the right place to work at. The passion of founders should be visible at various forums. They should work towards achieving higher growth and increasing value for every stakeholders. If the management is quite shaky about a lot of things, then you should be cautious.

5. Employees are just resources : You should never join a startup which thinks that employees are just resources to get their work done. For anybody, decision to join a startup is quite difficult and hence startup should provide very healthy environment. Every employee should be given due attention and he should feel priviledged of being part of a great team. There should be sense of belonging and employees should be happy being part of small team.

6. We don't follow any policy : If any startup boasts that they don't follow any internal policies and they are very flexible, then you should become cautious. Lack of policies creates confusion and dissatisfaction at later stages. After crossing very initial stage ( i.e. once team grows more than 10 people) startup should figure out and document internal policies. These policies helps in handling a lot of issues quite easily. Also this helps employees/prospective employees to understand company in better manner. Startup should not create a chaos internally after it gains critical mass.

7. Just work for us, don't Think : A startup which restricts creative freedom should be avoided. Typically a lot of people join startups to learn lot of new things quickly. They also want to try out new things/ideas. Some of them want to own their startup at some point of time. If a startup is not providing enough learning opportunities then that is not the right place. Founders should promote innovation and internal ideas.

8. You should not worry for money : A lot of startups tell their employees that they should not worry for money because the work is pretty good. This justification won't work for long-time and shows lack of validated revenue model. Any good business should make profits and should be shared with employees appropriately. In case company is not in a position to provide cash then it should be suitably compensated by stocks, profit-sharing etc. Any company spreading the message that they will pay less and won't compensate by other means should be avoided. This basically shows greediness of founding members.

9. We are Unprofessionals : You should never join a startup which shows high level of unprofessionalism. They don't value time, their dressing sense is horrible, they don't care about their clients, they don't value commitments etc. These kind of people can't scale-up operations to the next level. In business, after crossing initial stage very high level of professionalism is required by each member.

10. Accumulate money as much you want : If the founding members say that startups mean money and success only, then you should be cautious. If people at top are just showing rosy picture then definitely there is some serious problem. A lot of ventures become unsuccessful, but a falied startup also provides huge learning opportunities.