
My way to think about career
For those who want to change your career or just curious, things I learn along the way, from worked at Digital Agency, Start-up and tech giant.
*Declaimer: I am absolutely respect people I worked with and they are all very bright and talented. I even hold some of them most dear. The view from below is all from my own perspective, no judgement, just sharing.
At my early stage of my career, I worked in a digital media agency. It was a pretty good job cause you can learn so much on the latest tools and digital trends. Also, in agency, you can get in touch with a wide range of account, from financial industry to luxury brands. And then It was a time I realised something that changed my perspective of my career, so I put myself in a start-up and find my way out. The key takeaway from digital agency is,
- Scalability
The business model of an agency, by default, is not scalable. The scalability is hindered by the way they expand their business. When we got a new account to handle, we will increase our headcount right away. It implied that , if we have more accounts, we will need to hire more people. You can image, unless we got a product or service to sell, the profit margin will be eventually diminished by human cost. I know there are tons of amazing agency people making lots of money, I really admire that. I am talking how you think your position of business in the world, not looking into some exceptional cases or odd factors. I put this rule into my job as well, I set prioritises of what skill set I should improve for the long term career, criteria as below,
- It can be scalable, example: automation, storytelling skill
- It can provide actionable next step/ insight : analytical skill, business sense, product knowledge, some framework
In contrast, some skills I am personally not a big fan of it. like skill can apply for single campaign, outcome of skill is not measurable, skill can be replaced by automation.
So I have developed a list of skill I need to master and material I needed to go through. Here are some materials I have read and found it quite useful.
1. books I read (more on my to-read-list)
- The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman — basic principle of how you design your product
- The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
- The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
- Inspired: How To Create Products Customers Love by Marty Cagan
- Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers By Geoffrey A. Moore
see more on my goodread profile
2. blog or website I am following
- https://blog.kissmetrics.com/ — paid growth, PPC
- https://blog.intercom.com/ — product idea/ management
- http://tomtunguz.com/ — VC I personally like, author of Winning with data, pretty good book
- https://www.nirandfar.com — design thinking
- https://stratechery.com — tech industry insight and strategies
there are more, the list is way too long, usually I will spend one or one an half hours per day to read them through

Then, I tried to find a way to test the idea/ tactic or framework I learn from above. Then we set success metric, learnt from the result. I am thankful that I have a luxury to try and fail. That’s how we learn and how we growth.
Next time, I might share some experiments I have done and see how the thinking process helps.
I will start writing blog twice a week, or ideally once a week. Cause writing actually help me think and present. The goal I have set for myself is volume. I write as much as I can, I believe if I simply just do it, it will get easier.
