What It's Like to Be One of the First 10 Employees at a Successful Startup

If you're offered a seat on a rocket ship, you don't ask what seat. You just get on.

This advice from Google chairman Eric Schmidt is one of the standout lines from Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In. The Fortune 500 COO says it's some of the best career advice she's ever received — after all, it landed her at Google and then Facebook.

But there are rocket ships beyond Silicon Valley, and for our new series The First 100, we tracked down the first 100 employees at 100 startups and small businesses. These are the early employees who wore many hats, laid the foundation and established the culture for some of the coolest businesses around. We asked each of them questions about their ride on the rocket ship, and over the next few weeks, you'll get to know 100 faces behind your favorite companies. Below, meet employees 1 through 10 at innovative businesses including Of a Kind, Reddit, Groupon and Plated. Stay tuned for the rest of the First 100 Read more...