Few Insights For Employees joining Startup

While working in startup, I was fascinated to see the life of founders and how whole complex process of businesses run. Deciding on whether to join start-up still a big career move in India and it depends upon the answers to questions like Is it worth to join a start-up? and if to join, How to choose between them? Just like many others, I too browsed web, I found this article somewhere just sharing with u….

=> If you’re just looking for a job, you’re probably better off looking elsewhere.

=> Seeks signs of potential future success early. Working for a growing, thriving startup is much more fun.

=> Working long, hard hours is not mandatory, because working for a startup is not mandatory.

=> You probably won’t have a boss. If you want or need a boss, work for a big company.

=> Learn to balance risk. Working for all equity or all cash is not likely the right answer. Be informed. Remember that the number of shares/options you get means nothing. Think percentages.

=> If you’re not building something you think you’ll be proud of, it’s not worth it. Life is short.

=> Be passionate about building a product, not building your resume. If you do it right, an exceptional product will become your resume.

=> Don’t worry too much about being fired. Most startups need their employees more than the employees need their startup.

=> Go beyond just equity ownership, take emotional ownership.

=> If you’re not having fun, you’re in the wrong place.

=> Try to make the experience a success, even if the startup isn’t.

If u like it, u can read this complete post at 17 Pithy Insights For Startup Employees

Some Other nice links….
Startups – The ” Inside” Stories
Startup Hiring: Why You Should Date Before Getting Married

What a Tech-Startup expects from YOU?

Technical:
*Be a developer and not a programmer: People work in small groups, sometimes it may be just 1 person, with sole responsibility of the task. So always think like a developer not just like a coder/programmer.
*Be ready to work on multiple languages / technologies: It will throw many opportunities for you to expand your skills. U will lean many things in very small time. So be open minded.
*Be a self starter: Its more work with limited resources, so u have ample opportunity to show your passion for work.

Behavioral:
*Be ambitious: If its your choice to work for a startup, it shows your ambitious. So keep dreaming higher and higher!!!
*Be passionate and a risk taker: Risk is life and life is risk. So its all about taking calculated risks.
*Be a go-getter: So, pull up your socks and implement the functionalities yourself. Don’t just wait for everything to be done by the co-founders, know that they are already always over-burdened with work.
*Be helpful and caring: People in start-ups are generally closely bonded with each other. So being helpful in nature is surely a great plus.
*Flexibility is the key: Things are pretty flexible and so if u a great time manager, U will be a clear winner.

Client/User Focus:
*Think about your users – Please, please, please! Start dreaming about your potential users.
*Dog-food your product – Oh yes, big time! Always be the first users of your product.
*Show the road-map of your product to your users – So they know what to expect in the future. That will keep them curious and keep coming back to your product.

Company/Work Culture:
*You r the boss: There is almost always an unlimited scope for improving / changing things around you. Just think about sth new, discuss this with people around u and start implementing it. Again, owning the implementation is important! The power of being able to define the culture at my work-place according to the way I want it to be is the single most important thing that keeps me (personally) motivated.
*Helping others and building relations: Always remember one thing – a small company does not implement all that corporate stuff that a big company is known for. So, it is necessary to bond really well with your colleagues – not just for work but also outside it. The idea of working in a small company is to be able to change the world, to change the way things are done conventionally. And, it is really important to be absolutely comfortable in the group where everybody is working for the same.
*Be ready to compromise on facilities/benefits: In the early days, Its not wise to build a word class infrastructure and be ready for disaster. So they might pay handsomely but may not having a facility like Google/Microsoft. This again depends upon person to person if u love luxury then surely this is not a place for u. It requires little bit of entrepreneurial thinking.

And what else you think is IMPORTANT for a start-up. U fulfill their expectation and be ready for big rewards. It may be some times so big, u never had imagined before. More risk More return. Any comment always welcome.

Startup

Joining a startup is often a difficult decision to make. Many worry what would happen to their career if the company closes down. Would they be able to get another job or will they carry the blame of closing down the company. Most of these worries are ill founded. A person’s value in the job market depends on his skills and not on the revenue of the company he worked for. Even if the person had caused some damage to the company he can present it as a positive lesson he learned (how to crack interviews is a different topic altogether, and we will carry it in another post).
To take a closer look at startups our chief correspondent interviewed a person who has worked in a startup for 1 year. We refer to him as ‘Sanjay’, which is not his real name.
Q. Hi Sanjay, How has your 1 year long journey in startup been?
A. It was quite adventurous and I learned many things in this one year, which otherwise would have taken a much longer time.
Q. Why did you join a startup?
A. I wanted to take bigger responsibilities, which my old company was not giving; I knew a startup would give me greater challenges, responsibilities. I wanted to learn more about technology as well as how companies start. I knew startup provides faster growth opportunities as work is more and people are less, you become a crucial resource for your company after few months.
Q. How many people were there in your company?
A. We were a team of 10 people.
Q. What are the major challenges you faced?
A. The biggest challenge was to be flexible. Work could stretch up to long hours; some times it could be very demanding. In a startup your output is clearly visible, whereas in big company the responsibility is shared among the group and individual performance may get lost in that. The Startup I joined gave me work from day one; there was no question of bench period like what happens in bigger firms.
Q. What are the advantages of working in a startup?
A. There are many advantages, like you get more exposure; you can see the whole process how everything is working, you can get access to each and every level work, I for example could see the basic design document of the product I was working on.
Q. How is the work life balance in a startup and how are the facilities.
A. It depends on the team, and time management varies from individual to individual. We were short on facilities and as a team we used to discuss what other facilities we could have. There were situations where you have to double up as a hardware engineer if some problem shoots up in your computer.
Q. Did you ever feel you had to sacrifice your health because of long office timings? Or that the brand you were working on is not well known.
A. If I was working for a bigger company but not happy with the work or salary, I wouldn’t been happy. Working in a startup makes me happy, because of the personal responsibilities I can take. One has to be confident as roles are not clearly defined and only those who can take risk should join a startup.
As far as brand image is concerned if you talk to guys from top colleges like IITs they would be happy working in a startup.
Q. Any other risks which are there when joining a startup.
A. In a startup you wont have million dollar projects, it may be a small project, accordingly exposure may not be that wide. There are no fixed departments like HR; you don’t have a chance to talk to many people, it is a kind of closed environment. Therefore its wise to make a good choice before joining a startup.
Suggested Link for reading:
Ashish Kumar, founder of Tekriti Software, New Delhi writes about Start Up