What I learned from reneging on a job after signing the offer

A guide to catching 🚩 while vetting new opportunities

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by a friend and subscriber of False Start. I followed along as he navigated a job offer he reneged on after signing, and asked him to share what he learned. Although he works in tech, not marketing, the lessons (and emotions) are relevant.

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Earlier this year, I accepted a senior-level position at an early-stage startup after seven years with my previous company. I was ready for a new challenge, excited by the promises of their tech, and looking forward to a 55% salary increase.

I signed the offer letter 20 minutes after receiving it and gave notice to my manager the next day. Three weeks later, I found myself swallowing my pride and backing out of the new role.

That period ultimately served as a crash course in vetting a potential employer, aided by friends, network connections, and my own frantic research. I kept uncovering red flags and realized I had focused only on the responsibilities of my new role, while overlooking many aspects of the broader company. Unfortunately, there was no way I could succeed if the business itself wasn’t set up to.

Here’s everything I learned about vetting a new opportunity so you can learn from my mistakes.

Investigate the competitive landscape

Throughout my interview process, the team told me their tech was so differentiated that there were no actual competitors, even though the product wasn’t live yet. After accepting the position, I excitedly shared the news with friends. One asked me who the competitors were, and I was embarrassed to admit that I had no idea — I had believed they were truly novel. He named one, and I realized I had skipped some homework. Red flag #1.

I’ve since realized that everyone involved in a recruiting process will sell you on the company. Even if they have doubts about the product or the strategy, they won’t be fully transparent with you. Founders sell. It’s how they raise money and hire teams — and I was sold. You need to do your own research, even if you’re not an expert in the space. Some questions to ask yourself:

• Do they have product-market fit?

• If the product is already available, how is it doing in the market?

• Who are their competitors, and how do they stack up?

Claude and ChatGPT are great resources for this, especially if you’re not an expert in the particular industry. You should also feel empowered to ask questions during your interviews and in follow-up emails. (Editor’s note: Marketers should dig into historical performance of marketing, CAC targets, sales projections, etc.)

Red flags abound!

Assess the product

Companies often utilize testimonials, expert credibility, and data to demonstrate how their product is better than the competition. That’s what we call *marketing*. How do you know what’s real and what’s hype?

First, try it yourself, even if you’re not the target customer (or even if you have to pay for it). The small investment could be invaluable if it helps you understand how awesome (or terrible!) the product is. Maybe it will even prompt some ideas for projects to tackle in your first weeks on the job.

Second, find your own experts rather than relying on theirs. This is where your network comes in. Who do you know who works in the industry or in a similar business? Once I started talking to connections about the company, I was introduced to experts in the space who were happy to share their perspective with me. In my case, what I learned from them ultimately became red flag #2.

Evaluate the team

No matter your role, you’re going to be dependent on the skills and abilities of your colleagues. No one succeeds in isolation. One of my connections (and an expert in the field) suggested I examine this company’s engineering team to learn if they had experience bringing a product to market, which would have been relevant for my new role. I stalked every engineer on LinkedIn and found that none had taken something from zero to one. Red flag #3 for me.

I’ll caution that this isn’t a sure-fire rule to follow, especially in new and emerging areas. But in many fields, having individuals who understand the pitfalls and challenges in the space can be the difference between success and failure.

Understand the investors

Investors do more than just fund startups — they also open doors to customers, manufacturers, partners, and key hires. The best VCs tend to invest in the areas they know well and will use their expertise to support their portfolio companies.

Pay attention to the company’s investors, as they can provide valuable insights when vetting a company. While the biggest VC names can add a degree of legitimacy to any startup, it’s by no means a guarantee of success. Look at who the investors are, what their individual backgrounds reveal, and what else they’ve invested in. Are they experienced in this market? Do they have valuable connections? Research which firms have the most experience investing in the particular market segment. Have they invested in your company or their competitors? This can be tough to discern, as many investments in private companies are indeed private, but Crunchbase can be a valuable resource.

As I looked into my newco’s backers, I quickly realized that every investor was foreign. Not a single Silicon Valley VC, all of whom were throwing money at similar startups, had invested in this one. Red flag #4.

Know their runway

For many startups, runway and burn rate are crucial factors for job stability and can help you gauge risk. Again, AI can help with back-of-the-envelope math based on publicly available information on investment rounds and headcount, but directly asking the hiring team when they expect to need to raise again is totally fair. Do both of these things if you can, because you may not get a straight or honest answer from the team. Remember tip #1? Founders sell. If you’re in a role where budget matters, this is also vital information to have. (Editor’s note: Marketers, you can’t be expected to drive sales through marketing without a realistic budget.)

Trust your gut

As a chronic overthinker, it’s hard for me to discern what my instinct is telling me when I see peril all around, constantly. Putting the excitement of an offer aside, how do you feel about it? What’s your body telling you? This will look different for everyone. For me, sleep offers helpful clues to my internal state. How’s my muscle tension? What’s happening in my head as I’m falling asleep? Am I debating reasonable concerns or starting to spiral with endless hypotheticals?

Even before I started digging into the competitors and the product, I woke one morning from a bad dream that the company was all smoke and mirrors. I’m not one for dream analysis, but I do think this revealed some underlying anxieties I had about the offer.

Making a decision

These factors aren’t deterministic, but they can help you understand potential risks and make a more informed decision. And while the hiring team will sell you (it’s their job), you can make them work for it. Do your homework to build the highest quality picture you can of the company. And ideally, do this before you sign the offer letter, unlike me.

In the end, I made the right call to renege on the offer. I was also fortunate to have an extremely supportive manager in my current role and felt comfortable being transparent with her about the process. The three weeks I spent digging into the company felt frantic and terrifying, but by the end, I had a much better view of how hard (and potentially impossible) my job was going to be. I don’t expect that I’ll stay in my new role forever, and when I do eventually leave, I’ll be better prepared to thoroughly assess a new company.

What factors do you look for when evaluating a potential new employer? Drop your own due diligence tips in the comments!

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