An interesting article (https://deardesignstudent.com/8-reasons-to-turn-down-that-startup-job-1f82a00ade34) and one that's quite bleak. Having worked at a startup straight out of school, I can relate on not all, but several points - especially the 4th one: the bulk of knowledge and self awareness that comes out of working with clients vs the lack thereof in a single product-based company.

Curious to hear your thoughts.

this -> 7. The world needs fixing, not disrupting.

and then there's this -> http://www.lindsredding.com/2012/03/11/a-overdue-lesson-in-perspective/

Yeah I was reading this article yesterday and had a split opinion about it, but ended up mostly agreeing. Mike Monteiro has posted some really great advice in DDS, and clearly has a lot of experience in a variety of areas. However I always love to play devil's advocate, so here are some thoughts:

I think a lot of it depends on some key points - What are the alternative jobs on offer? Is the reader highly self-motivated and reflective? Does the reader want to learn about the startup/business world and be with a product from start, to release, to maintenance and beyond and see all of the nitty gritty details? Or do they want to just work on designing to a brief and not get caught up in all the business stuff?

I think point 6, "Unless you thrive in chaos you will not be comfortable." is really important. If the reader can answer "yes" to that, then a (well run) startup can provide a huge amount of experience in a pretty short amount of time. A lot of it would be learning from mistakes that can be taken to future projects.

However I agree that point 4 is a really strong reason for going with an agency or freelancing, and certainly that route has provided me with so much experience that I can bring with me when we work with startups and on Canvas itself!

I mostly agree with the article but realise that's easy for me since I am looking to be in a similar position as Mike, a design director at a client services company. The whole article is written from that perspective.

A similar case can be made for jumping into a product startup. It all depends on how you look at things. For example, the design work you will be doing in a services context will most likely be on a very surface, marketing style level. Whereas in product you can learn so much more and go so much deeper, but you don't have the variety.