What no one tells you about working at a startup

working at a startup is often so glamorized and i just want to you know help take off those rose-colored glasses and just to give you some insight on what it's really like working at a hyper growth company all the lows and all the highs and hopefully share some helpful tips that will help you in your journey i was an early employee at two startups the second one being notion which i joined about a year and a half ago i was employee number 26 um joining the community team and fast forward to now i'm now program manager working on the api and also the assist and self-serve team and just to give you some perspective i joined when the company was like 20 to 30 people and a year and a half later we are now close to a hundred employees whenever you join a new company there is always that honeymoon phase but i would say that for startups it is particularly steep because when you join you're like oh new stuff new people new products but soon you will be like wait a minute is this the job that i signed up for and i saw on the jd and the answer will probably be no because what you have to realize or what i realize is that when a company is so small and you're growing so quickly the needs of the business will be rapidly changing one month to the next and that's why the jd's are purposely like pretty vague on what you would be doing and there is no like 30 60 90 road map for your job or your career on like this is what you can expect to learn and this is how you can grow in your career there's none of that and it can be overwhelming and really confusing at times another thing that makes the beginning feel a bit steep is that in any like startup job description there's that phrase like you will wear many hats and there is pros and cons to this right the pros are that if you're early in your career you get to try out a bunch of things across functions and kind of be a generalist and figure out what you really like but the con is that you find yourself doing everything and wondering if you're doing a good job at any of them and i've definitely felt that because at startups you typically don't get a lot of mentorship and there's very little direction so i would definitely take that into account if like you yourself are wondering what i like working at a startup or a more established company and if you do know yourself that you want more direction and intentional mentorship then i would definitely go for the bigger company but there is definitely pros to working at such a nimble small startup because there are no rules there's very little process and you have the opportunity to solve a lot of interesting problems my tip on how to navigate that beginning stage and find your footing is to find opportunities in the chaos because i guarantee you there is a lot of them even for me a month into me joining notion i remember feeling very like anxious on like did i join the right company what am i even doing and then i just had an honest conversation with my then manager and i asked him like hey what would you be doing if you had the bandwidth right now and he threw out a project and i was like okay i'm gonna own that and see how far i can take so we're now past the steep honeymoon phase and the next phase i like to call is the pressure cooker and i call it the pressure cooker because when you join a super small and nimble company you are definitely the underdog in the market you know compare notions like the microsoft and atlassians of the world and even though we've grown substantially since i joined it's still helpful to really maintain that underdog mindset because it creates a level of urgency like you never know when someone's gonna take your lunch so this is the typical environment that a hyper growth company has and mix that in with like feeling like you want to prove yourself like feeling like you want to find your footing and like make your mark and make impact blah blah blah and then it's very easy to reach burnout and i want to mention this thing about startup perks i know that perks really add to why the startup life is very glamorized and hey i'm all for it the free food drinks and whatever you know i've never had freshman 15 back in college but i've got like notion 15 i would like eat lunch eat dinner there and when you're getting free dinner at your company you're usually working through the night i did that a lot when it wasn't super necessary so my second tip on navigating this whole like burnout phase is don't be the cause of you burning out and honestly speaking those company perks are there so that you don't need to think about anything except for work and i really had to find that balance of like how to maintain this like urgency like speed mindset with like taking care of myself and like setting good boundaries so kind of being aware of that and readjusting is what i found to be super critical for my emotional well-being but also on how i can sustainably show up at work so remember when i mentioned that pressure cooker metaphor this is when the meal is ready to be served and hopefully it's delicious this is a huge reason why i love working at startups no matter how chaotic and ambiguous as it can be is because you have so much ownership and responsibility over projects that you don't really even have the traditional experience for and you wouldn't otherwise get to do that at a much larger company for example like remember when i mentioned a month in i asked auction this year oh like hey give me a problem to solve and that problem was to fix our discounts and credit system as i started working on it i just saw a huge opportunity in the startup ecosystem that like notion should be the go-to tool for all startups out there and with the help of like really talented cross-functional partners we were able to launch it and it was super smooth and fast forward to now the program has grown so big and is a key part of how we're expanding into other markets like dublin and japan and etc but to be honest with you i really couldn't celebrate that win and i think i was just so focused on making sure the launch was smooth and successful that i couldn't really enjoy at all so my tip here is to enjoy the process and make sure you celebrate your wins along the way and if you're anything like me i have a tendency to get very tunnel visioned into what i need what goal i need to achieve and i kind of forget what's in my peripheral and even though that can be very effective it actually can be kind of toxic and even when you reach that pinnacle or goal you're never really as happy as you think you will be so that's when i really learned like okay these highs and opportunities are incredible but what's the point if i'm not having fun and really enjoying it this next phase i want to call the art of giving away your legos and that phrase give away your legos was popularized by molly graham and she's kind of like the go-to person on what it's like working at a hyper growth company and kind of normalizing the experiences that people usually feel when they go through that and she uses legos to explain what it's like when a company is scaling so let's say you're building like a super complex lego tower and everyone's in it everyone has like 10 different legos and jobs that they're working at and it's amazing but pretty soon you have like oh my gosh i have too many legos to even work with and you need more people and that's when the company starts growing 2x 3x within really short periods of time and that is not really natural and it's very uncomfortable when it happens and she says this great thing that you want to make sure that you're scaling as quickly as your company is and in order to do that you actually have to give away your job and i thought that was a super interesting way to put it at a scaling company your job literally changes like every three to six months and i can tell you i've had so many different jobs at notion that doesn't reflect in my like official job titles i've experienced this like giving away my legos um pretty recently where i mentioned the startup program and i was itching for a new problem to solve and i also needed a lot of help so i ended up like recruiting like a new colleague to like train him up and like share ownership of that and to eventually kind of pass over the ownership over to him when i gave it to him i honestly felt feelings of regret and like fear like oh no i gave away something really good and it's like has a lot of potential and it's growing and i just had to really reel that in and remind myself like jenny there are like two three piles of new legos in front of you that you can pick and choose from and like build something new so that you can grow and learn different things so don't worry about the old legos like he's doing a great job and like just focus on your new ones in other words i would say that my tip would be to regulate your emotions and recognize that it's totally normal just be aware of how you're feeling because you want to make note on how that's manifesting into your behavior what your company look like from like 1 to 20 to 20 to 50 to 50 to beyond can look like very different companies and i joined as like employee number 26 and as we started inching towards 50 you start to lose that feeling of like feeling very tight-knit and like being able to sit across the same table over lunch like that's not a thing anymore and now we're up to like 100 people and now it totally feels like a different company yet again and it can feel really odd there's a lot more process than you're used to there are more cooks in the kitchen and you have to be more thoughtful and careful about not wanting to step on anyone's toes but on the flip side there's also great things about scaling where you feel like you're almost like growing up where now we have a formal hr and like a legit recruiting company and amazing new leaders that have recently joined our executive team and the tip i have for how to endure the scaling is just to keep in mind that like everyone is just figuring it out like you even the founders kind of put things into perspective that like yes this is hard but also scaling this quickly is a privilege like it means that our company is doing incredibly well and being a part of this rocket ship company can really transform your career [Music] okay so it's been a hell of a ride lots of ups and downs and where you kind of want to be at is kind of this like more stable like up and down wave the first r is regulate as in regulating your emotions because there will always be ups and there will always be downs but what you can control is how you react to those ups and downs and i would definitely say in the beginning i would just ride those highs and ride those lows and it was too volatile and it kind of overtakes your life and you don't want that like you want good boundaries and the second r is reflect when you're at a company that's moving so quickly and change is happening so fast it's hard to keep track of like where you're really at internally and my now manager who's amazing by the way shout out to kate uh recommended to me to start like a work diary and whenever you're feeling these highs and lows write what's happening and why you feel those things and keep track of like are you learning what gives you energy and it really helps give you perspective when like you're in a low and you look back on that work diary and it just helps to keep track of like are you learning at the way you want to are you growing at the rate that you want to and if you're not why is that okay and the third r is to relax chances are if you're working at a tech company you are not trying to find the cure for cancer so just chill out enjoy the ride you're in for an incredible journey and for those who are thinking about joining a startup i hope this gives like a more realistic picture on what it will look like and if you have any more questions like leave a comment down below and i'm happy to answer it but thanks so much for watching see you in the next one [Music]

Channel: Amy and Jenny

Views: 83,039

Keywords: notion, notion templates, notion.so, notion app productivity, productivity apps, tech startup, startup life, working in a tech startup, notion for productivity, notion app tutorial, notion app setup, notion app project management, notion team, notion team collaboration, working in a startup, tech startups, startup vs big tech company, should i work at a startup, working at a startup, working in tech, startup vs big company, notion tutorial, career advice, life in a startup

Id: XxyNyyoj_Kg

Length: 14min 34sec (874 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 04 2021