LA Startups: I want to work for you for free
If you are involved with a startup in the Los Angeles area, I want to come work for you for free. No strings attached. Heck, if it comes down to it I will make the coffee and clean the kitchen (really).
Here are some things that I can do besides make delicious coffee:
Development - Most of my recent web projects are written in Django and utilize Gearman for async jobs. I also have one iOS app in the store written in Obj-C. I setup and manage my servers on AWS for my own projects. My current stack is Nginx, Green Unicorn, and Postgresql. Here are some things that I have built:
iOS Shared To Do Lists - http://www.ourtodolist.com
App Store Keyword Analytics - http://www.appstoredata.net
Marketing and Business Development - My background is in the nonprofit world, and for the past 3 years I worked as the Director of Marketing and Development (fundraising in this context) for a mid-sized symphony orchestra. Further back, I was a music major in college. I have an MBA with a focus in nonprofit management. I am not the type of MBA that gets so much flak in the tech world.
Why am I doing this? I want get involved in the LA startup community, meet some great people and learn a lot. I am not ready to be a full-time software developer (I think...) but I want to get there and I can add value in a number of areas. If are in the tech industry and don't have an opportunity for me, I would still love to take you out for a coffee or beer!
Any advice on how to step into the tech/startup world? I just moved out to LA, and have about 4 months before I must have some income coming in. I want to use that time to experiment with some different career paths and to learn.
My work experience is not related to tech work, but I have a passion for it and have been working on side projects for a long time. Where should I start to get my feet wet?
Why haven't you built out appstoredata.net ? Seems like a useful service.
This is actually what I am working on right now. The current site has been up for about 2 weeks and I am adding all of the other features behind the scenes. I haven't had a lot of traffic to the site yet, but a decent number have left their emails so it does appear there is some demand for the service.
Lots of good meetups for devs in LA. Let's grab a coffee sometime.
Have you given thought to issues with legal liability that your prospective startup would get themselves into should they take you on board?
Are you referencing the work for free portion of my post, or a general liability that taking a new person onboard entails? I am not familiar with California's laws on the former, but would certainly want to be in compliance. My choice of the word 'free' was to highlight that I am looking for compensation in the form of learning and connections rather than money. Not sure how the latter would work exactly - I would hope to demonstrate to anyone interested that I am competent enough to not interfere with the status quo of their business and the legalities surrounding it.
Thanks for raising this issue, I hadn't considered it before.
So here's one perspective for you....
http://work.ocregister.com/2010/04/05/working-for-free-unpai...
Another way to do this would be to structure it as a contractor to be paid $100/week for general consulting; something that insulates your friendly employer from any risk with bringing you on board.