How do I find non-technical job opportunities at a startup that is pre series-A?

Check out http://insidestartups.org.

As a non-technical person, unless you have a significant track record adding substantial value in whatever role you envision, it will be tough to find a good paid opportunity at a small startup if you don't already know the founders. What I would recommend is to network like crazy in your community, meet some founders working on interesting problems that you could see yourself getting involved in, and just get on their radar as a smart/capable/hardworking person. Do some unpaid work for them, put together thoughts on ways they could acquire customers, market their product, build biz dev relationships, whatever. Fundamentally, you will probably have to put in a significant amount of unpaid time with them before they see your value. At that point you can discuss how to formalize your relationship with some equity and minimal salary (as an unfunded startup, they won't be able to pay much).

1. Learn everything you can about startups Learn everything about the business, the culture, and the challenges startups face and how it all changes based on the stage of the company and the business model. Learn what non-technical people do at startups (http://mfishbein.tumblr.com/post...). Read blogs from prominents entrepreneurs and investors. Here’s a short-list of blogs to get started with (there are many other great ones though): https://svbtle.com/ http://www.avc.com/ http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/ http://cdixon.org/ http://www.paulgraham.com/articl... Talk to friends and family who have founded, funded, or worked at startups. Attend relevant Skillshare classes and one of Lean Startup Machine’s weekend seminars (these are also great networking opportunities - more on networking below). 2. Decide if startup life is really for you Now that you’ve learned about how startup companies work and the culture, decide if it’s something you’re sure you want to do. Understand that you’re going be underpaid and overworked. That there’s a lot of uncertainty and it’s risky. Also understand the benefits, such as having a lot of responsibility, being able to work with incredibly talented and motivated people in an awesome work environment, and having the opportunity build something innovative and meaningful that can have a lasting effect on society. If you’re fortunate enough to join a successful startup (which is probably more rare than you think), there can also be significant financial reward. I’ve shared my thoughts on this topic in a Quora thread titled “Why do people want to work at startups (Mike Fishbein's answer to Working in Startups: Why do people want to work at startups?)” 3. Identify a target list of companies based on industry, product, and stage Based on your research from step one, determine what stage you want the company to be in based on your tolerance for risk, skillset and interests. Pick an industry or two that you’re passionate about. Know everything about the industry and the companies in it. The make a target list of the companies you’d like to work for. Become a power user of their products if it’s consumer facing. Learn everything you can about the company, it’s challenges, and it’s culture.  4. Formulate your pitch Match what you like to do and what you’re good at to what the company needs (as determined above). If appropriate, talk about your relevant past experience. 5. Network your ass off Networking is an entire topic on it’s own, but the most important things you need to know about networking are: 1) It’s about helping others first with no expectation of reciprocation; 2) It’s about building relationships over time, not just meeting people; 3) You have to have something to offer or you won’t get far; and 4) It takes time to build a strong network and get value from it. New York City has really get events catering to the startup community almost every night of the week. The most essential resources I recommend you use regularly are Gary’s Guide and Meetup. You should also reach out to everyone you already know to ask if they can introduce you to anyone who has founded, funded, or worked at a startup. Use networking as an opportunity to get advice and learn about new companies and trends. To learn more about networking, I recommend the books Never Eat Alone and The Startup of You, and my Skillshare class, How to Build an Awesome Professional Network (http://skl.sh/TKykJb).  6. Go in! Now you’re ready to get meetings and interviews. Take out your target list. Use LinkedIn to see if you know anyone who’s connected to the company and can make an introduction or if you know anyone at the company. Ask for a meeting. If you don’t know anyone at the company and you can get introduced, you’ll have to go in cold. Find an individual’s e-mail and write a personalized and very short e-mail asking for an “informational” coffee meeting or phone call to get advice and learn more about the company as a way to get acquainted. Build a relationship. Try to help them in any way you can. Deliver your pitch from step four. 7. Prove your value You should have a blog that displays your knowledge, skills and character. Quora is another great tool for that. Have a strong and thorough LinkedIn profile. Build a following on Twitter. I would recommend offering to work for free on a part-time basis, especially if it’s an early-stage company. Use it as an opportunity to prove your value, as well as determine if you like the people and the work you’ll be doing. Develop ideas on how to help the company implement them. Make introductions, line up deals and sales, write a marketing plan, design something, etc.

I'd say you're not seeing the forest for the trees: Instead of looking for a job at a very early stage startup, why not look for co-founders and start your own startup? The types of networking you'd do and the amount of tenacity required are probably the same. Even if you don't currently have "the idea", interacting with other people who are on the same path may result in the emergence of something you never thought of. Won't know unless you try.

When I was a PhD student, we invited speakers from outside of academia to speak to us about exactly this topic. https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-lochhead-a6b3824, the CTO of mBio Diagnostics (not the VP of Boston College), came to tell us how the world works.  He gave two parallel talks in the hour that he visited with us. In one, he stood in front of the room and recited his resume with a beautifully manufactured backstory. This was the "official" career talk. Although none of it was a lie, the story was designed to make sense in hindsight. He got this degree, then moved to that school for the next role because of the strength of the department. Yada yada. Lots of smart sounding decisions. He came off as a very polished fellow. Then, he gave the "real" career talk. In the down to earth version of his talk, he said that he followed a girlfriend out to Colorado, then got a job at a diagnostics company after having worked only in academia before that. He picked up the culture and was genuinely good at what he did. He started to make a lot of friends in the startup diagnostics field. This talk made sense to me on a human level and I started to realize how this guy was able to land a CTO position in a great startup.He made friends. That was the key. The important part of his meteoric rise is that he had real relationships with people who had real needs. Moreover, those people could pay him for his efforts. His friends, the people with whom he went out for a beer, were the kinds of folks who started companies. So, when one of them spun out mBio Diagnostics from Precision Photonics Corporation, they called him to see if he had the appetite to take on a CTO role. Michael Lochhead (who I have not seen in years and I hope he's ok with me sharing this stuff about him - Hi, Mike!) was a nobody in the diagnostics world when he left the University of New Hampshire. He proved his mettle in the field when he got hired at  Accelr8 Technology. Michael did two critical things right. He developed his own potential to be the CTO of a diagnostics company by working at Acceler8 and learning what a CTO role requires. He put himself on the same level as CEOs by making friends with the people who were starting companies. When you are aiming to work with a startup, get friendly with the people starting the companies. It's a tight community and once you've made a few friends, you'll easily make a lot more. Your goal is twofold. Develop real relationships with these people. This isn't pitching, it's not fake, it's not all about getting a job. Build genuine relationships. Then, make sure you give evidence that you are highly skilled and capable. Do side projects that show your talents. Volunteer for little roles where you might meet people. Show off a little. Resumes don't work as well as reputations. Be prepared to sing in the chorus for a while before you land the lead role. Learn everything you can, no matter what your title. Best wishes!

Go work on a farm. I grew up on a farm and still view that the best bootstrap startup experience you could ask for. I'll point out these reasons: You typically have to get financing to get started. Instead of a VC it's from a bank that specializes in agricultural financing. You must be cost conscientious. Farming isn't cheap because of volatility of weather and it's impact on crop yield, frequent change in government subsidies which impact your gross margins, and hiring is often done cyclically to match the yield pattern of crops. In a startup you similarly have to be cost conscientious. While it's true that a 2 week cold weather spell won't freeze your servers like they would a 90 acre field of oranges, but the analogies of disaster prevention and cost controlling are similar. As a farmer you have to be prepared to pivot to survive. If the soil quality degrades and won't yield corn for you anymore, then disc it up and plant cotton. You constantly have to learn new things on a farm. I joined a startup as an internet marketer but they didn't believe in Google Analytics. So I had to learn MySQL and some basic Python scripts and command line stuff to self serve my own analytics. Learn how to use new tools or you won't get too far. Never irrigated a field before? Right, well here's a tractor and several hundred meteres of PVC pipe. Go figure it out. You have to work hard. Holidays don't exist for a farmer. Holidays do exist for startups but you get the point. Think long term. I don't know any farmers that thought "Hey, I can grow this 90 acre field of corn and sell it to the big farm next door for a quick flip!" They all get into it thinking long term. It's what they do for life if the product they plant can continue to produce a yield. I'd really like to see more entrepreneurs think of life-long products/problems they want to solve and it seems like the best one's do. Sure, that might not be too practical for someone living in Palo Alto that wants to learn about a startup. But at least consider it. You may actually find yourself enjoying a 3 month stint on a corn/cotton farm and I can promise you that you'll have a perspective shift that will prove meaningful later on in life. The central valley is only an hour and a half drive away and it is nothing but farmland.

When looking for startup positions last year, I literally Google'd a list of startups in my area, and fired off emails to all of them. I got over a dozen interviews, all from firms with less than 10 individuals who weren't even explicitly hiring.

I would say that the easiest way to find great jobs at startups is to used this website called planted.  It is a website that helps you get a job for a startup even if you don't have tech experience.   I used the website when it was formerly lynxsy and then it was able to find me a solid job working at a startup based out of Brooklyn.  I think it seems like such an easy way to find it.  It also makes the process much less daunting.   https://www.planted.com/invite/7uha