tl;dr:

• if you want to work at a startup, you need to master the founder interview

• to master the founder interview, learn to think like a founder

• founders think in proxies, know what they are and use them to your advantage

• ensure you actually understand the company's stage and want to work in it

• be informed and show genuine curiosity about the company and product

• anticipate questions on your experience and prepare to answer them

• change your mindset from “I’m interviewing” to “I’m trying to figure out what’s best for this company”

When interviewing at a startup, the first chat with the founder is the critical step. Not the take-home, not the technical, not the onsite.

Decisions get made fast. Founders are busy. They’re asking themselves within the first couple minutes:

• Can this person add velocity? Or will they require too much onboarding before they contribute?

• Have they meaningfully driven results? Or have they just participated in projects?

• Are they choosing this role for the right reasons? Or are they just testing the waters?

To make the right impression, you've got to think like a founder:

Talk in outcomes, not scope

Most candidates, when asked what they did, start by describing scope:

“I was on the infrastructure team, working on internal developer tooling…”

That might be true. It's not compelling.

Top candidates talk in outcomes:

“I rebuilt our internal deployment tooling, which reduced time to staging by 70%. That let product teams release faster, and the CTO pulled it into a cross-org initiative.”

You don’t need to have been the owner of a $10M result. But if you were part of something meaningful, say what you personally did. Did you get notice a problem, obsess about it, and put in extra hours to build it, show it off, and release it? Mention that.

Founders rely on proxies. Don't let that work against you.

Founders don’t have time to deeply evaluate every resume in a 30-minute call. So they lean on shortcuts that signal things like performance, curiosity, ambition, and execution.

That can feel reductive. But it’s also a lever you can pull.

Proxies include things like:

• Fast promotions → might show you outpaced peers

• Top-tier logos (top VC-backed startup, FAANG, top 20 universities, consulting) → might show that you've worked hard to reach a high bar before

• Side projects or open source contributions → might show self-direction and initiative

• Early-stage experience → might show bias toward action and comfort with ambiguity

• Informed curiosity → shows you’re prepared, engaged, and serious

That last one is especially powerful. More on that below.

If you don’t have the big names or linear track record, you can still signal excellence by how you show up. Come prepared. Show intent. Ask second-order questions. It’s one of the fastest ways to flip a founder’s mental model from “maybe” to “let’s move them forward.”

Informed curiosity wins interviews

Want to stand out? Show you’ve done the work.

Not talking about memorizing the homepage here. We mean genuinely exploring what the company does, how it works, and what problems it’s solving. That might look like:

• Reading blog posts on the business or engineering articles

• Signing up for a trial or demo

• Reviewing the team’s LinkedIn profiles

• Checking out investor decks, funding history, and customer segments

• Listening to podcast interviews or founder AMAs

Then ask real questions Not just “what’s your roadmap?” but:

“I explored the product and noticed how you’re surfacing X insight. Curious how that’s landing with your enterprise customers. My assumption is that most of your users are [persona]?”

That kind of question shows:

• You’ve taken initiative

• You're working to understand the space

• You’re thinking like a teammate, not just a candidate

It also signals that you won’t need to be hand-held through onboarding or reminded of what the company does after the recruiter intro (big red flag).

The biggest red flag in a founder call? Having to re-explain the job description.

The biggest green flag? You’ve already started thinking like an owner.

Be honest. Are you actually ready for the stage of this company?

Founders are looking for people who add a multiplier effect. People who come in and elevate the pace, not just match it.

If you don't want to do that, why join such a small, early team?

This doesn’t necessarily mean working 14-hour days. But it does mean showing up with urgency, resilience, and curiosity. Things will be messy. You might wear 4 hats in the same day. Priorities shift. You’ll be closer to the customer, and to the consequences.

Before you show up on on the founder interview call, ask yourself:

Things could go sideways in 6 months. Is that a risk I’m ready to take?

Is the challenge of ambiguity something I genuinely want? Or something I’m just tolerating?

Ensure you actually want to be at a startup, even if you need a bit of time to consider whether you want to be at this startup. If you're unsure or unaware of the stage, it's likely going to be obvious to others who are not unsure nor unaware of the stage.

Anticipate the push and pull questions

Founders are trying to understand two things:

1. What’s pushing you away from your current job?

2. What’s pulling you toward this one?

They are looking for genuine interest. If you’ve had short stints, gaps, or less relevant experience, be ready to explain those moves thoughtfully. Even better if you explain them succinctly in your resume.

You might be exploring a few opportunities. That’s fine. Just make it clear why this one made the cut. Founders are weighing risk too and they want to know you’re serious before they invest time.

We can't tell you how many candidates are not prepared to answer the basic questions that arise from a quick read of their experience

For example, if you haven't worked early-stage before, know this will be a question in the founder's mind. A couple of examples on how you should be ready to address this:

• Explain how you're frustrated with the bureaucracy/red tape/outdated stack/limited scope at your current company/FAANG, etc.

• Even better? Show them you have founding team DNA by building something and shipping it to real people. Put it on Github and send it to the founder. The places you’ve worked are not an excuse for your not having experience building zero to one.

  • Eg. A few years ago, Shopify asked if candidates ever built an eCommerce site on their platform - signalling founder mentality, understanding of their platform, and genuine interest in what Shopify is building backed by action - not words.

Sure, talk about compensation but be realistic

It’s fair to want financial growth. But if you’re leaving a big tech company because you want more ownership, faster execution, and startup impact then you shouldn't also expect higher cash compensation.

Startups (especially pre-PMF) often have limited cash flow. They can offer equity, growth, and trust. They normally can't offer Google-level salaries.

Early in the process, founders want to know:

• Are you aligned on the comp range?

• Are you motivated by equity or just chasing cash?

• Are you here for the right reasons?

That’s enough for now. Save the detailed questions for later in the process.

Please don’t lead with perks

Asking about benefits in the first call sends a bad signal.

If your first few questions are about PTO or 401(k) you will definitely not come off as excited about the problem, the product, and the pace of problem-solving.

Instead, ask:

• What’s the biggest challenge facing the team right now?

• How close is the team to the customer?

• What would success in this role look like in the first 3 months?

Those questions signal curiosity, ownership, and alignment.

Common pitfalls (and what founders are actually thinking)

Some mistakes feel small to candidates but to a founder juggling product, team, and fundraising, they can instantly change the tone of the call.

Here are a few common missteps we’ve seen and how founders tend to interpret them:

“So what does the company do exactly?”

Sounds like: I didn’t do even the most basic prep / Didn’t care to

What the founder hears: This person will likely waste our limited time.

Fix: Even a 10-minute skim of the site, team, and product shows you’re serious. If you actually just don’t understand the business, that’s okay - but frame it in a different way that shows you researched first and attempted to understand but you have informed questions.

“I haven’t had a chance to try the product yet.”

Sounds like: I’m not actually that curious about what you’re building.

What the founder hears: They may struggle to understand our product and users.

Fix: Even a free trial sign-up gives you talking points that 90% of other candidates won’t have.

“I’m open to anything right now.”

Sounds like: I’m exploring everything and nothing.

What the founder hears: This person is unlikely to be committed.

Fix: Even if you're still exploring, share what’s pulling you toward their space, team, or stage

“What are your vacation policies?” (as an early question)

Sounds like: I’m still thinking like a big company employee.

What the founder hears: They’re mostly focused on benefits. They’re are other companies with better benefits.

Fix: It’s okay to care about comp and balance but lead with questions that show excitement for the mission, not the perks. Benefits are not a good reason to join a startup.

Talk, but not too much please :)

One thing we see all of the time is poor communicators. Unfortunately, even if your role is highly technical, the founder interview will always be at least somewhat about communication. Here are some silly simple rules to follow:

• Rehearse your answers common questions but deliver them naturally. Everyone will be asking you questions like, “why are you looking to make a change?”, “what have you been working on at X?”, “what impact did you make at y?”, etc. Practice answering these and other common questions before the call. That way, you’re able to deliver a crisp answer.

• Get good at giving a 30 second overview of your experience that hits on major impacts, learnings, and why you made the career moves that you did. Whatever you do, do not word vomit about your 10 years of experience.

• Never monologue for more than 1-2 minutes without pausing. Nervousness makes some people want to keep talking and constantly reinforce what they’re saying with more examples. You’ll exude confidence by answering a question directly with appropriate context and then stopping. The interviewer will ask you a follow up if needed.

• Do not use an AI teleprompter

Lastly, think about the company and not yourself

Every founder, whether they realize it or not, dreams of hiring people who put the company first. Before their career aspirations and interests. This makes sense, it’s how every successful team operates. And, for those teams, it works out. The success of the team drives the success of its members. As the team grows, your career options should improve and your interests, having likely expanded, likely have more opportunities.

Most people approach interviews as a challenge to answer questions correctly and put their best foot forward. If you want to stand out, change your mindset to thinking about what’s best for this company. If you do that, you’ll

• ensure you understand the company, product, role

• think carefully about the role description and what kind of person would thrive there

• investigate the company, team, product, and current challenges

• begin to obsess over how that company could win and what they need to move forward

• be realistic about whether you and your experience are a possible match

• take a real interest in the founder and the business they’re building

If you approach the conversation like this, the founder will almost certainly notice and you will stand out. Their conversation with you will likely be one of the more energizing interviews they’ve had. If, for some reason, you or they still decide it’s not a close enough mutual fit, you’ll likely have built good rapport and a connection that could serve you well in the future.

want to chat about this? send an email to michael at beluga.team