How to get a job at a startup as a 20 year old

My suggestion for how to get a job at a startup when you’re 20 years old with no experience, connections, or any idea what the fuck you want to do.

This is exactly what I did to get my Everlab role. If you’re serious about this, I’d give 2–3 months of high intensity, and you’re pretty much guaranteed to get something.

Step 1: Define your best-case scenario

In explicit detail, list your best-case scenario:

All parameters you can think of, write them down. Give yourself a set amount of time (e.g., 30 minutes) to avoid mental masturbation.

Then, with these variables, figure out what you’re willing to trade. List the second and third case scenarios. This will help you prioritise once you have a list of opportunities and how much effort to put into each.

For me it was: Early stage, <15 people, recently fundraised, big problem/mission (deeptech, healthcare, etc, not some meaningless B2B SaaS), founders with exits, Melbourne, technical role.

Step 2: Sporadic Action

Mindless outputs. DMs, emails, coffee chats, swing by startup offices, book a one-way ticket to SF—honestly doesn’t matter; just do something. You can get lucky with one cold DM or know someone who knows someone, but my frame would be:

What do I need to do to make it unreasonable for me not to succeed?

The strategies I used were:

  1. Warm intros: People are probably 10× more likely to hire someone they know vs. a random. Use your network help you find opportunities.
  2. Cold reach-out, providing value: Extremely high effort. Show you’re capable by giving value for free: write blogs, make videos, do design mock-ups, etc.
  3. Personalised cold reach-out: 5–10 min each; short, credible, clear ask, follow up aggressively until you get “No.”
  4. Generic cold outreach: For lowest-priority opportunities use an automated sequence with less personalisation.

My goal was to build a list of companies/opportunities regardless of whether they were actually hiring.

So I reached out to VCs and angels first, asking which founders they thought were best. I did this because:

  1. It’s one-to-many
  2. They have a gauge of quality
  3. They can give warm intros
  4. They’re incentivised to help their portfolio companies
  5. They know about unlisted or in-progress roles

Other suggestions are VC job boards or fundraising announcements, but I didn’t find those particularly useful.

Step 3: Convert

IMO, if you have little to no life experience, all you can sell is your ability to be “generally useful.” Early-stage teams care about:

  1. Ability to build context quickly
  2. Speed of execution
  3. How quickly you don’t need management
  4. Initiative to start projects and follow through
  5. Ownership over a part of the business
  6. General hustle. Avoid normal application processes and resumes.

Step 4: If that fails, repeat

Take a free work opportunity, deliver an outcome, use it as credibility, then reach out again.

My cold email sequence to investors

Cold email screenshot 1 Cold email screenshot 2

Resources

Good luck, and message me if you want some reach-out feedback.