LA Startups: I want to work for you for free

9 points by evanmarks 13 years ago | 7 comments

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!

evanmarks 13 years ago |

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?

coryl 13 years ago |

Why haven't you built out appstoredata.net ? Seems like a useful service.

evanmarks 13 years ago | |

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.

donfrancisco 13 years ago |

Lots of good meetups for devs in LA. Let's grab a coffee sometime.

Toshio 13 years ago |

Have you given thought to issues with legal liability that your prospective startup would get themselves into should they take you on board?

evanmarks 13 years ago | |

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.

blacklooksgreat 13 years ago | | |

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.