This is how I got three job offers as a 16-year-old high school student.

( and why I rejected them )
🧵👇

June 2020.

I receive a DM from a college student in California. The message read something like this "Hey Pratham, I am one of the co-founders of XYZ Inc, a robotics company, we are looking to add enthusiastic people to our team, would you be interested?"

(2 / 11)
It was the first time I had ever been offered a job, so I said Yes! (I did reject it later)

There were a couple of interview rounds I had to go through. None of them included technical questions, which was interesting.

(3 / 11)
After the first interview, I saw the list of the roles I could apply for. I realized how little I knew, terms like "Ui/UX, ROS(Robot operating system)", at that time, I was overwhelmed.

(4 / 11)
I knew that this wasn't a job for me. I decided that I would reject this job role even if I cleared the second round, which I ended up doing.

(5 / 11)
August 2020

I had quite a bit of free time with me, and I had learned a decent amount of HTML, CSS, and JS.

What should I do next? Of course! Search for a job 😅
(Spoiler Alert: Bad decision)

I made a tweet asking if anyone wanted to hire me as a front end developer.
(6 / 11)
That tweet exploded, and within an hour, I got a job offer.
I ended up having a zoom call with the CEO of the company.

(7 / 11)
Things did not look right. They wanted me to create a full-stack production-ready application without any team or a senior developer's help. I ended up rejecting this offer.

(8 / 11)
Late 2020

I get a DM from this person working on a startup based on a blockchain recommendation system, and the company was profitable. ( According to him)
They were even willing to pay me a very good salary.

(9 / 11)
However, I honestly did not believe in the company's idealogy, which is why I rejected this offer too.

My parents told me that at this age, learning and exploring new things was really what I should be doing, not look for jobs.

(10 / 11)

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1/“What would need to be true for you to….X”

Why is this the most powerful question you can ask when attempting to reach an agreement with another human being or organization?

A thread, co-written by @deanmbrody:


2/ First, “X” could be lots of things. Examples: What would need to be true for you to

- “Feel it's in our best interest for me to be CMO"
- “Feel that we’re in a good place as a company”
- “Feel that we’re on the same page”
- “Feel that we both got what we wanted from this deal

3/ Normally, we aren’t that direct. Example from startup/VC land:

Founders leave VC meetings thinking that every VC will invest, but they rarely do.

Worse over, the founders don’t know what they need to do in order to be fundable.

4/ So why should you ask the magic Q?

To get clarity.

You want to know where you stand, and what it takes to get what you want in a way that also gets them what they want.

It also holds them (mentally) accountable once the thing they need becomes true.

5/ Staying in the context of soliciting investors, the question is “what would need to be true for you to want to invest (or partner with us on this journey, etc)?”

Multiple responses to this question are likely to deliver a positive result.