A Transportation Planner’s Guide to Tech Startups
June 1, 2015. Day One.
That was the day I embarked on my new career in the tech start-up world and left the safety of transportation planning as I knew it. It was an exciting day. The only exception was the minor anxiety I felt from possibly throwing out nine years of transportation and planning experience out the window to become an Customer Success professional, a term that I had only Googled a few weeks before. In addition, I would be the company’s first employee, which itself invokes silly questions like “How will I be paid? Personal check?” or “Why do we use iPhone speakers for conference calls?”
But here I am in July 2017, two years older, one more child, and nearly exceeding my TRB Young Professional status. It’s an opportune time to share a little bit of what I’ve learned as part of this adventure. In the spirit of what I’ve learned (being concise is one main learning), I’ve condensed my experiences into five neat takeaways for others considering a transition.
1. You’re Not Leaving Transportation
When I left consulting, I was concerned about losing my network and general ties with the industry. Why? Because my title was Director of Customer Success. It’s common in the SaaS world but unheard of in transportation circles. I had to convince myself that despite having different roles and responsibilities, my end goal remained the same as my previous jobs: How do I help make transit better?
Working at a start-up may mean you’re working at a scrappy for-profit business where one needs to bring value. In our early days, I would summarize the people who worked at our company as those building product, selling product, and delivering value on that product. I was useful in the latter given my experience working with transit agencies (not so useful at the first two). While I was not developing study recommendations, I needed to slightly pivot those experiences to fit my role at Remix with customers. I was able to take the things I liked best about my previous job — working with clients, teaching, and presenting — and do them five times more, all while keeping myself on track with my goal of improving transit, though through a different lens.
2. Embrace the Learning Curve
Subtitle: Expect to fail often. As a transportation consultant, it’s rare to outright fail at something. Maybe you don’t win a project, or maybe the analysis did not yield the correct results, but the feedback loop feels longer and more forgiving (sans outreach projects that go awry). In my two years working at Remix, I’ve failed so many times and had to learn from those mistakes, and I’m still learning. However, it’s one of the most exciting things about making this transition. In 2015, I was yearning to steepen my learning curve and to push myself into answering unfamiliar questions. Having the opportunity to fail, learn, and make better decisions constantly over the past two years has been incredible for me professionally, while also providing the gratification of making progress in building a company.
3. Responsibility, Accelerated
In most private sector jobs, it’s likely that career opportunities and upward mobility happen faster than they would in the public sector. However, working at a small company, not only do you take on responsibility faster, you will have more opportunities to take on different roles given the shifting needs of a quickly growing business. As an example in my second year, I had to quickly learn how to become a recruiter, manager, and then team lead. All roles I have truly loved, but I’ve needed to become comfortable with those new responsibilities very, very quickly. Many others at Remix could probably share similar stories of having to quickly take on new, unfamiliar roles and growing rapidly as a result.
4. It’s a Circus
This will surely grab some attention, but here’s what I mean: A circus brings together incredibly talented people with a wide variety of skill sets, choreographing them together in front of an audience. In our circus, under one big tent, or in our case a trussed roof, we have some of the most talented individuals across a wide range of skills: design, editing, marketing, sales, programming, events, etc. and bring them together, in sync (most of the time), to produce something great for our transit planner audience. This is the first time in my career I’ve gotten to work so closely with such a wide set of skills, and it’s truly eye-opening. It makes me appreciate how a broad range of talents can be applied to a transportation problem.
5. It’s What You Make of It
The biggest questions I’ve had from my peers over the past two years include: (1) “If I do this, will I ever be able to be hired back into the public sector or consulting? (2) “What if it doesn’t work out?” (3) “Will the pay be as competitive?” These questions are valid, but it really depends on what you want. Working at a start-up, or any small company for that matter, is an open canvas. Presuming you have a functional business model, you’ll have more opportunity to carve out what you want from the experience than anywhere else.
So some thoughts on the above: (1) If you love working with customers, you’ll likely be able to build an incredible network, of which any firm would find valuable. I suspect having a tech start-up experience would also make your background stand-out. (2) If it doesn’t work out, then you at least had a incredible learning opportunity in a rapid period of time. (3) Financial stability is important, but I believe transport planners really care about making an impact. As my father-in-law says, you can always make more money, but you can’t make more time. If you’re good at the job, and the company is successful, the compensation will follow.
