It has now been almost two years since I jumped into the startup world head first, after spending 9 years in management consulting and the corporate world. It has overall been a great learning experience, and I have said many times how grateful I am to my bosses (CEO and COO) for giving me the autonomy and freedom to make my role what it is.
When I joined, I most certainly had a picture in my head of what startup life would entail. There were visions of fast product spin ups, guerilla customer testing (thanks Steve Blank), fast decision making. I would be leaving all of my big company frustrations behind. About six months in, I began to realize that startups face the same trials and tribulations as corporates. Simply being a startup doesn't mean you're going to move faster, operate efficiently, or innovate better. As an acknowledgement, or perhaps warning for those with false expectations, a few of the things I've spotted so far...
Fear of failure: Once a startup is a few years in, and if it has experienced moderate success, experimenting can be hard - there is only so much money, time, other resources to play with, so experiments are often seen as too risky to try in the first place. Corporates see experiments/new innovations as either a waste of time or not significant enough (eg, will this make enough of an impact to be worth it), while startups see them as a drain on resources better used against what's already known.
LESSON: Build specific structures to encourage teams to research opportunities, design small experiments, and report back. Set aside a small budget each year for this, to signal support for new ideas.
Shiny object syndrome: Chasing innovation and competitors is done in short bursts, or halfheartedly, largely due to scarcity of resources. Resource scarcity is both because of small teams spread thin, and fear of failure/inability to experiment.
LESSON: Set a clear annual vision and strategies that are nimble enough to change with the market, but stay true to the company’s mission. As a leadership team, discuss if the ‘shiny object’ falls under the 1 year horizon strategies, and if not, analyze the risk of not pursuing.
Rallying towards a vision: Employees at corporates often feel disengaged and disconnected from the company mission - you show up, clock in, and clock out (at a previous employer, people practically sprinted for the door at 5). Once early startup employees start to cycle out, and the team begins to grow at a fast clip, it becomes increasingly harder to motivate newer and younger team members. Unless you are a high profile company or extremely cutting edge, it is my opinion/experience that people join for the sake of joining a startup vs. deeply caring about the mission or product. (I am somewhat guilty of this). Leadership is caught off guard because up until that point they could be more hands off on culture, they didn’t have to rally the troops - the energy was inherent. With growth and scale comes an intense need to renew that energy…which is hard to do.
LESSON: Hold regular small group, cross-team meetings/focus groups to discuss what the culture of the company should be, or how to amplify what’s already working. Build a robust onboarding process that gets new team members excited from the get-go. Share growth goals with everyone, and provide progress updates on a regular basis.
Living in PowerPoint: Turns out PPT is not just for consultants toiling away in hotel rooms at night. I also continue to live my life in slides, producing them for Sales collateral, board meetings, partnership reviews and reporting, even internal meetings. I'm not sure if I thought that would go away at startups, but I am surprised by how much it continues to be the main form of communication.
LESSON: PPT will likely continue to be a CEO favorite for a while, but you can get good at writing memos and leveraging strategic design talent to create more visual storytelling for external audiences.
Tech debt: Yes, it is possible to have technical debt even when you are only a few years old. Blame it on engineer churn, lack of technical leadership, or perhaps it's just inevitable. It's there.
LESSON: Hire well from the beginning. Hire a technical leader who is also a people person. Identify the ‘rockstars’ vs. ‘superstars’ in engineering and allocate work/opportunities accordingly. Keep the non-technical leadership apprised of the true nature of things - otherwise you’re trying to solve for the tech debt while keeping others in the dark about why things aren’t working the way they expected…