The Good, The Bad and the Ugly of working for a start-up.

So, you’re thinking about working for a start-up? You are eager to break free from those big company constraints?

You’ve sought advice from everyone and anyone and met unadulterated enthusiasm from some quarters and barely restrained concern and angst from others. If you haven’t lost sleep over the risks, the nuances and seriously considered the challenge of stepping out of that large warm cosseted corporate environment you aren’t thinking clearly.

It takes guts, some will say. You need to consider it with eyes wide open and understand that whilst you currently arrive at work in the morning fresh from the company subsidised gym session and straight into the alluring gaze of your in-house barista or company chefs, those days could be numbered. So, here’s some advice from someone who has done it more than once.

What makes me an expert?

Over the past 25 years, I’ve worked with start-ups from Chicago to Venice in the technology, professional services and retail sectors. I absolutely adore the opportunity to work closely and partner with start-ups when they embark on their hiring phase.

I’m genuinely not overstating the fact that it can be utterly intoxicating. From the moment you sit down and thrash out what they want the business to feel like, define the texture of the organisation from the employer/employee brand and how to actually implement and keep it true through to the remuneration structure and on-boarding process, it can be the most rewarding work you’ll ever do as a recruiter. But hey, this about you, not me.

Start-ups: They are not for everyone

The truth is, start-ups are not for everyone. Back in 2018 CB Insights conducted some research on Why Start-ups Fail and the 3rd most significant reason was poor hiring strategies. I’ve written about that separately in a previous article published in the technology, blockchain and AI medium Ayo.news, called Recruiting for Keeps. This article, however, is about why you probably should, or should not consider joining a start-up as an employee.

To begin, it’s important to understand where my views come from. I’ve personally set up 3 start-ups in my own career to varying degrees of success and failure so I have a top-down, bottom-up experience as a founder. I’ve also joined 3 start-ups and therefore have that less frantic hair pulling out perspective.

One thing I am certain off, neither of those options are for everyone and both come with incredible risk. It doesn’t matter what research or resource you use, the general rule of thumb is that circa 90% of all start-ups will fail, eventually. It’s a hard world and as we witnessed in 2008 even the most robust, resilient and well positioned and financed start-up can fail. As did mine in Bahrain. Who would ever imagine that some of the apparently wealthiest banks in the Middle East would suddenly fail, cancelling all their hiring and even find themselves unable to pay your invoices?

Murphy’s law belongs to the world of start-ups; if it can happen it probably will, usually when you least expect it. A start-up is like a small child. It has to be nurtured, fed and cared for pretty much 24/7 and it will have teething problems, night terrors and tantrums. Just like children do.

So, here are some of the good the bad and the ugly (in no particular order) of working for start-ups. The opinions are my own, feel free to chastise me and challenge me in the comments if you disagree.

1: Job titles are misleading and often meaningless

A quick glance around the world of Blockchain, iGaming and other sectors reveals a whole host of new or recent entries to the market. They are abundant with fabulously endowed employees with carefully crafted job titles hanging like precious jewels from their LinkedIn in profiles. Look deeper and you’ll probably start to wonder why the Global Head of International Partnerships has less than 2 years in a B2B sales role in Basingstoke and actually came from a Customer Service/Account Management background.

Let’s face it, in a start-up scenario your job title is irrelevant. It’s all hands on deck and you’re just as likely to be dashing to the nearest Costa Coffee to get your visitors a Latte as closing deals worth millions. Guess what you’ll be doing when the printer runs out of ink or someone forgets to pay the internet bill? Yep, you’ll be buying a new print cartridge from the nearest supplier or paying the bill probably out of your own pocket until the cash flow burden eases.

2: Remain Humble, for a while at least.

It’s wonderful to hand out your shiny new platinum embossed business card to family and friends and watch them look in awe at your sudden elevation to the C-suite. It’s worth playing it down a little though, staying humble and keeping your feet on the ground. Few if anyone is fooled, you can ramp it up when you get through the first couple of years and hopefully when the business hits that idealistic and dreamy IPO status and your shares are realised in personal wealth. But remember that you’re probably going to experience some pretty significant highs and lows, question your sanity, want to throw a desk through a 3rd-floor window and even resign at least a dozen times or more before that day arrives.

Being humble and staying honest means that your friends and family will be there to support you through the dark times. Trust me, you’re probably going to need a few hugs and the occasional late night with a case of wine or a good malt whisky at some point.

3: Forget the 9–5 and the job description.

Start-ups are often extremely hard work, at least they are after the initial phase of stop, go, slow, meander and then run as fast as you can phase. They are legendary for being unpredictable. A former business partner and I once spent 6 months waiting for a legal case against us by a competitor to be resolved. We were prevented from trading for the duration of the litigation. 6 months playing darts and solitaire and watching wads and wads of cash disappear into a lawyers pocket whilst keeping the wolves from the door by busting every single credit facility we had open to us. We knew we would win in the end, but it was a war of attrition that almost broke us.

That’s the very worst-case scenario of course. But start-ups have a tendency to be unpredictable in terms of the working pattern. It’s pretty much guaranteed that the moment you say to your partner

“Let’s take a long weekend and recharge the batteries…”

The proverbial shit will hit the fan and you’ll spend that weekend heading off disaster or securing that valuable client late into the night, instead.

Similarly, as already touched on, your skill sets and experience will be truly tested, probably to extremes. Wearing lots of hats, turning your hand to anything and everything is all standard in a start-up scenario. All the things you previously deferred to a junior colleague, because it wasn’t your forte will need to be done by you. Skills that you haven’t utilised for a decade will need to be dug up screaming and refreshed and brought up to date. You’ll have to grit your teeth and literally just get on with it.

The good news is, this will add significant definition to your abilities, hone new skills and reacquaint you with old ones. You’ll be a better person and undoubtedly a more complete professional because of it.

4: Dig deep and be resourceful.

I read somewhere once, I think it was courtesy of Peter Diamandis, that being involved in a start-up is like doing an MBA. It’s true. The chances are you’ll have no processes, no procedures, no policy or similar in place and little if any support. Everything will need to be developed, agreed and implemented from scratch and trust me, lawyers are slow to deliver on the things that have to be absolutely bulletproof and watertight. From selecting an off the shelf HR solution to ensure that you are compliant with employment law to getting terms of business created, it takes time. You’ll learn more about legal and compliance, marketing, branding and so on every day of every week. You’ll be brimming with new information, a walking talking encyclopaedia of knowledge about things that probably never remotely interested you before. But just imagine how fast you will grow professionally? Remember, every day is a school day in a start-up scenario.

It’s eye-opening stuff and hopefully, you’ll love this part of it. But don’t forget your day job. It’s very easy to get distracted. Stick to the plan, schedule hard and develop distinct timelines to deliver elements and projects. One of my key pieces of advice is to utilise your own networks wherever possible for advice, guidance and services. The chances are friends and associates will be able to speed up and even prioritise the little things that can often derail your focus. I once made the mistake of spending 8 weeks defining the branding for an executive search business, endless meetings and proposals for websites, colour schemes and business card designs when the reality is that’s not making me money, it’s costing me money. Defer it to someone, pay a professional to take ownership for it and focus on what is important.

5: Be realistic about the rewards on offer.

Start-ups change fast, often overnight. You’ll have different levels of transparency especially when it comes to the funding and investment side. In the beginning, every founder is ebullient about the potential opportunity and you’ll probably get a contract loosely promising all kinds of options, buy-ins and similar. The reality, however, is that the value of a business is ultimately defined by how much finance it took to get it over the line. Don’t be surprised if your wholly-owned start-up with 2 founders becomes a VC vehicle 8 months later as they scrabble and haggle for that additional finance to tweak a product, secure additional resources, pay developers or simply keep it rolling along to that nirvana on the horizon.

Be realistic and pragmatic about what is promised. I genuinely don’t believe anyone sets out to mislead or over-promise, but things change quickly. If you’re thinking about joining a start-up because you expect to be rewarded as if it’s the next Apple, you probably need to think things through a little more clearly. The chances of that being the case are incredibly remote. The chances of it even been close to that is rare. The truth is, join a start-up to learn, to grow and to acquire knowledge and experience. It will make you a better human being, it will probably test your personal and professional relationships and make you more resilient. The chances are that you’ll come out of the other side stronger and be highly desirable as an employee at a whole different level. But, as for getting rich quick, maybe, maybe not.

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If you want to explore the idea of working for a start-up in more detail, how to identify and market your professional profile so that you get discovered then contact me directly.