☕ Never A Dull Day- My time at a start-up
I started my career with an early-stage start-up and spent an exciting 14 months before deciding to move on. Here’s how it went for me…
I joined a bootstrapped Edtech startup right after graduating from Ashoka University. It was a new city with new people around and new schedules to follow. It was no less of an adventure than the time I took a ride on the fastest roller coaster in the world. Only this time (unlike the roller coaster ride which had lasted only ~1.4 minutes) my adventure lasted for a good 14 months.
As I try to recall, articulate and compile my learnings, there’s one thing that becomes very clear to me - there was never a dull day. Here are some of my key observations and learnings from the experience.
⦿ Finding a buddy and investing in them
An early-stage venture, by nature, is devoid of structures which makes it likely that the journey of an employee will be filled with chaos. While chaos eventually gives way to creativity and the emergence of structures and patterns, the stress stemming from it can be maddening at times. I was fortunate to have found people within the organisation with whom I could build trusting relationships. These relationships later became critical spaces to discuss, deliberate, and most importantly, vent.
My journey was turbulent right from the beginning. We were working under all kinds of constraints as a team and sometimes without much direction. Such an environment often led to moments where I was absolutely lost. What worked for me was the presence of a buddy who shared a similar experience. I could talk to them about my work and the happenings at the organisation without much hesitation. In these conversations, we would together work towards making sense of things around us and would almost always find some meaning in the madness.
I now realise the importance of such bonds. This buddy becomes a part of your larger support system (consisting of family, friends, romantic partner etc), serving as an emotional anchor and a sounding board which, in turn, helps one produce better work. Any genuine effort that I made towards developing such relationships had compounding effects over time. I figured that one has to look at this as a symbiotic relationship and make an effort to sustain and develop it with time. Listen as much as you talk. You know it isn’t symbiotic when you are the only one talking.
⦿ Clarity and Consistency
Things do not stagnate, even momentarily, in a start-up setting. It was a combination of short deadlines, seemingly unachievable targets, changing variables, and several other constraints. Amidst all the dynamism, for no fault of anyone, the larger vision of the organisation became blurry and did not make sense to me at times. This led to a kind of disillusionment that was seldom desirable.
I quickly learnt that I needed clarity. I needed to be clear on what I wanted out of my time at the organisation, and that this would help me wade these bouts of disillusionment. For me, it was learning how things work in a startup and making relevant contacts. I aspire to own and operate a business myself so I looked at my time at the organisation as preparation for the same.
Since the external variables weren’t always stable, I tried to focus on being consistent with my own approach and attitude. I realised that it helped me balance the instability outside. I started breaking down bigger targets into smaller tasks and setting individual deadlines; preparing blueprints for future reference; creating and adhering to a loose routine that I followed at work. These steps helped me feel some sense of control over the chaos. Over time, sincerity towards my work, taking constant feedback, and working on improving myself contributed towards the stability that I was seeking.
⦿ An appetite for experimentation
One of the biggest advantages of working in a startup is the fact that it exposes one to a lot of different functions that go into running a company. I am curious by nature and love experimenting and in the organisation I found room to put this curiosity to test. I started off with a lot of enthusiasm for new things but soon settled into my routine, and got comfortable. Some introspection made me realise that I had to make a conscious effort and indulge in experimentation to make the most out of my experience.
When you are part of a small team in a young organisation, there is always more work to be done than there are people. I decided to pick-up side projects that needed to be worked on but had no defined ownership. Soon I was also helping my coworkers wherever they needed a hand. This appetite for experimentation was instrumental in making my learning curve steeper than what it would have otherwise been.
⦿ Building the culture
I went to a fairly new university - where I was part of the second undergraduate batch. Which meant that I was already exposed to the idea of how culture is built into an organisation and I held the value of culture with high regards. This came in handy when I started working with an early-stage venture.
In the initial stages of an organisation, the culture is still evolving. While the founders would have a broad vision about the culture they want to build, it would almost always be a work in progress. As one of the early hires, I was cognizant of the fact that I was a primary stakeholder in the creation of an organisational culture that aligned with the founders’ vision. I was not going to be a mere consumer here, my role was more like that of a farmer indulging in subsistence farming; I was going to consume what I created.
To be honest, in my early days I was quick to complain about the absence of things and got upset if some things were not how I thought they should be. However, after I had spent a couple of months in the organization, I figured that it was time I played my part and contributed instead of only complaining. I had conversations with the founders and other coworkers to understand their idea of the perfect culture and then made myself take initiatives to contribute to that shared vision. In this process, I got involved in laying down the foundations of the company’s culture. I know that the work that went into building the culture will impact several people as the company grows- what can be more fulfilling than that!
⦿ Questioning everything
In my early days, whenever I found something that seemed broken to me, I jumped into suggesting ways to fix the problem. Looking back, I attribute this to the desire to prove myself to my coworkers. With time, I realised that most of these problems were things that were already known. I clearly needed more context before I could actually contribute in a meaningful way.
I started doing my homework and got a sense of why things worked the way they did. I questioned almost everything to get this understanding. I let people know where I was coming from and how I thought this process of questioning and deliberating was going to help the company’s growth (which is a shared goal). Approaching the process with a sense of kindness, humility, and empathy helped in making the process smooth for me.
Such systems help discover blind spots and often lead to the creation of valuable insights. These insights, if taken seriously, can further help preempt problems and be converted into actionable items to solve those problems. A simple act of being aware and raising the right questions can help combat the romanticisation of firefighting that otherwise exists in early-stage ventures. I was lucky that the founders and my coworkers encouraged me throughout.
These were the things that made my journey meaningful and fulfilling. Working with a small team and a growing company will always come with several challenges. These challenges can be very unique for different people and my learnings might not always end up helping everyone who is reading this. My intention here is to create a space for reflection where one can use these learnings as a foundation to further probe and understand what works for them.
Thanks to Meghna, Saloni, and Harshit for reading earlier drafts.
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