Follow a top CEO/CTO as person 2-10 with a market you like...
... And then:
* Learn how 0->1 , product market fit, and overall process works, which you miss by joining growth-stage
* Grow from working with customers hands-on to becoming an area owner with responsibility around customer journey, revenue, hiring & firing, etc. VP Sales, early CTO/Dir of Engineering, CTO where you are heavy on sales/solutions engineering flow in big enterprises, ... . Working for a VP/director/manager is different from owning a part of the business, especially where you have a teneous & sales-oriented external aspect like revenue or customer success. Likewise, not owning the customer journey hides a lot, which is easy to miss in a growing company as specialization happens fast, esp in engineering.
* Pick carefully on enterprise vs consumer, which market within that, and which internal teams you work with. That's the customer persona you need to live & breathe later.
Not easy!
Also, fwiw, there is a big class of professional startup people who are 'scale up' experts that can take a working product, VC capital raised by other people, and help that grow faster. The OP's advice is more for getting on that track. And from a founders perspective: you can just hire them, everyone wins. Just don't confuse that with a 0->1 skillset, not inherent..
Follow a top CEO/CTO as person 2-10 with a market you like...
... And then:
* Learn how 0->1 , product market fit, and overall process works, which you miss by joining growth-stage
* Grow from working with customers hands-on to becoming an area owner with responsibility around customer journey, revenue, hiring & firing, etc. VP Sales, early CTO/Dir of Engineering, CTO where you are heavy on sales/solutions engineering flow in big enterprises, ... . Working for a VP/director/manager is different from owning a part of the business, especially where you have a teneous & sales-oriented external aspect like revenue or customer success. Likewise, not owning the customer journey hides a lot, which is easy to miss in a growing company as specialization happens fast, esp in engineering.
* Pick carefully on enterprise vs consumer, which market within that, and which internal teams you work with. That's the customer persona you need to live & breathe later.
Not easy!
Also, fwiw, there is a big class of professional startup people who are 'scale up' experts that can take a working product, VC capital raised by other people, and help that grow faster. The OP's advice is more for getting on that track. And from a founders perspective: you can just hire them, everyone wins. Just don't confuse that with a 0->1 skillset, not inherent..