Why You Should Work for a Startup as Your First Job
I just turned 25 last December. Out of my last 24 years on this planet we humans call Earth, I have dedicated around 3.5 years working for this pretty nifty startup, named FASTPORT. To read more about the company, visit here.
You can probably wonder, how could I have started working for a startup since I was 21? Wasn’t I still in school? The answer is simple: I started working for FASTPORT as an intern, then worked my way up the chain until today. Now, I handle most if not all of the front-end development, manage a team of developers in Vietnam remotely, and pretty much do all the other tech work required to be done.
But enough on the present. Today, let’s reflect the past a little and talk about why you should work for a startup as your first job.
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Lots of students these days have such burlesque, pink-painted dreams about their future: Start their own thing, make a ton of money, and basically go into history as some sort of figure. (Thanks a lot, “The Social Network”.) Well, the cold, brutal truth is this: Building your own startup sucks, and most startups fail, sooner or later. In college, I tried multiple times with a series of ideas, some by myself, some with other friends who shared the same ideals. They either never made it pass idea-stage, or failed miserably and ended up with the founders’ fallout. My failures were due to a lot of different reasons, but in the end it all came down to this: I wasn’t ready.
I joined FASTPORT completely out of curiosity. At the time, in the spring of 2013, I already got an internship offer from Apparatus, a Fortune 500 company based in Indianapolis, as well as chances of getting an internship at Spotify’s Manhattan office. Had I wanted to pursue either options, I could have ended up with a cushy internship and had a ton of fun learning the basics of technical marketing and/or software development. But life has its funny way of making you go down the path you never really expected.
It took me some time to make my decision, but finally I replied “Yes” to the offer. Then I finished up my abroad semester in Berlin, Germany. It was an insanely life-changing period too, ending with me getting to watch the all-German Champions League final between Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund in the heart of Germany (for all the soccer fans out there). Afterwards, I boarded a flight back to Boston, Massachusetts to start my internship.
I remember Colin, now our Director of Marketing, picking me up at the airport. He had to wait outside for almost an hour and a half, because apparently US Customs thought my passport and visa looked suspicious. (Welcome to the life of a nonimmigrant individual, btw.) As we drove up to Lowell, where the company was based (still is), he explained to me where the company was and how much work it would be to bring this thing to life.
The morning after, we got right to work. I remember being introduced face-to-face for the first time to Jim, my boss and FP’s co-founder, as he made some jokes about my interview with them. Afterwards, there were a sort period of time, like 1–2 weeks, when I was rotated around doing a bunch of different things: visiting truck stops and talking to drivers, being on sale calls, testing with our current system, etc. Soon enough, Jim realized that I sort of had a knack for the web, so I put me on programming full-time. I started experimenting with .NET frameworks, playing with building simple SPAs, messing with backend codes that up till now I still don’t get, writing stored procedures for MSSQL, and so on.
It was a wonderful time. For a kid who learned jack squat during his first 3 years in college when it came to real-life web development and building big-scale applications that makes real money, this was a game changer. For the first time, I knew what it took to conceptualize a product and build the damn thing. I also started catching on to the level of discipline it takes to build something that ambitious: 24/7 work cycle never even seemed enough. I used to take forever in the shower, just enjoying the hot stream of water running through my muscles and my body, but I gave that up as soon as I started working for these guys. No time to be enjoying that. In the words of Pearl S. Buck, “Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.”
The summer went by in a finger snap. By the end of it, I have earned myself a part-time job at the same company, working remotely from my school during senior year while I made my way through the last year of my college life (and perhaps my schooling career). FP flew me out a couple more times during that senior year (Fall Break, Spring Break, you name it), to work on some serious projects that required on-site presence, and I gladly complied. I found my jam with these guys, and at the time, dedicating my best to FP’s success was all I could think about. At the same time, I kept learning more and more about how to build a successful business and a killer product that changes the lives of many.
I ended up taking a full-time job from these guys. The pay was average, and the workload was still insane as ever, but I gladly accepted. I thought I have found my home in this cold, harsh world. I soon realized, however, that perhaps it wasn’t all true.
I moved to Boston and started working full-time. Work was good, and my performance was as solid as ever. Slight fluctuations here and there, but overall I was rock solid, if you’d like to say. The schedule is awesome too. I don’t have a 9-to-5 work schedule; instead, I woke up, jumped to work, crunched until I get bored and/or exhausted, went running or grabbing a drink with friends, went back and hopped on Netflix for some Futurama while keeping working. I also got to go to conferences for free, and got to meet people like Grant from Mythbusters (yes, for real). Life was sweet.
Still, the fire was diminishing. I could feel it. Work became harder and harder to keep up with. Coworkers growingly seemed like strangers. Projects floated by like autumn leaves on a lake. Nothing seemed important any more. Before long, I found myself making new friends and business partners. I got involved in several different startup projects, contributing my skills to those guys.
That’s when I realized that the skills I’ve accumulated over the years working for FP have finally kicked in. I can design and build up the whole project scope, present it to the business people without a glitch, and win them over with sound and convincing engineering arguments that noone can say no to. I have become the technical weapon that everyone wants on their team. Years of working closely with people like Jim and Colin have turned me into a working machine. I crunch out wireframes and use cases faster than you can finish a bowl of Chipotle. I stay alert to opening windows and opportunities, and know exactly when the right moment is to chime in and give my professional opinion on an idea, and sometimes even sketch out how to turn it into a real product with a freaking timeline. I have become a startup machine.
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Anyhow, that was my story of growing from a young, naive college kid to become a professional in my field. While it had not been all clear to me at first, what I was doing all this for, it eventually dawned on me that the time, effort and dedication I’ve given to this ambitious startup has finally paid off. I am me today because of everything they have taught me, and damn, they taught me well. Building startups are hard, but when you learn from the right people, you have a better shot of becoming your own boss one day too.
Now, perhaps some of you would ask: Are there bad jujus in all this? Hell yeah. But that is something I will have to write about that in my next article, “Why Should You NOT Work for a Startup in Your First Job?”
That’s all for today. Ciao for now, and hope anyone who stumbles upon this article enjoys my bits of sharing.
Regards,
Leo
P/S: I haven’t written anything this long for a while, so excuse my terrible narrative, and feel free to leave comments if you’d like to criticize my story or my writing. Critique is always critical for growth.
