This is very good advice , I joined my current nuclear startup because I cold emailed the ceo , did a similar thing and offered to do an internship to find my exact niche . It helped me pivot from SaaS founder to hardware R&D
I strongly agree that for generalists it’s incredibly difficult to achieve coherent positioning through terminology alone — whether on LinkedIn, in a resume, or in personal communication — simply because the language available to us is built for a world of specialization.
Speaking from outside the startup bubble (many years in nonprofits and cultural marketing), I’d say that the approaches you describe may sound naive at first, but are actually very effective. As a small real-world example: we recently hired a project coordinator who was a young generalist and who did almost exactly what you’re describing. Not fully, not perfectly, but the attempt itself made a difference.
This is very good advice , I joined my current nuclear startup because I cold emailed the ceo , did a similar thing and offered to do an internship to find my exact niche . It helped me pivot from SaaS founder to hardware R&D
This is a very useful article, and a great read.
I strongly agree that for generalists it’s incredibly difficult to achieve coherent positioning through terminology alone — whether on LinkedIn, in a resume, or in personal communication — simply because the language available to us is built for a world of specialization.
Speaking from outside the startup bubble (many years in nonprofits and cultural marketing), I’d say that the approaches you describe may sound naive at first, but are actually very effective. As a small real-world example: we recently hired a project coordinator who was a young generalist and who did almost exactly what you’re describing. Not fully, not perfectly, but the attempt itself made a difference.
Great read!
I'd be interested if this has worked for a generalist who is also very senior in the technology space.