You’re not that bad, startup world!
Forced by shem’s hilarious post “Fuck you Startup World”, a lot of people jumped on the bandwagon and published a shitload of similar posts. S0, that’s why I’m jumping up on the other side of the bandwagon — here’s why I love the startup world:
It’s so nice to work on something you actually believe in instead of being a number in a big corporation, trying to proceed and create value every single day, working with people who share your enthusiasm and your way to think, getting excited about everyone who comes along with a simple “Hey I like what you are doing”, see your followers and users grow every day, work in creative and different office environment (with or without been bags and ping-pong tables, I personally like ping-pong and hanging out in bean bags), attend startup events all around the place and getting free drinks and pizza at after parties.
But I think the biggest issue is not the way the startup world works, it’s more about how every one of us is adapting to the specifics of the startup world. If you are just not able to deal with that, it will probably be a big pain in your ass and you will deeply hate it!
Yes, there is a big commitment necessary to dedicate your life and time to care and think about your startup all the time. Even during a nice pint in my favourite pub or during a conversation with my lovely grandmum, I always catch myself talking about my startup. But why should that be bad? It simply means that I actually love what I spend most of my day on and someone else actually is interested about what I do.
True, we have to deal with everything on our own, here at Trailwhisper. But that drives me every day to get out of my bed and actually learn something new or work on different skills. It makes me competitive, it makes me curious and it makes me try to think out of the box every single day. I’m glad to spend my evenings watching Ted Talks in order to learn something new or writing shitty blogs in order to improve my English. At least I’m not actually burning brain cells by watching sedating crap on the TV.
Sure, you have to deal with a lot of people you actually rather would not talk to and you will get fed up with people who want to make the world a better place. But at least they are still fighting for their dream and it reminds me every day that it is more valuable to fight for something with real value than just fight with your boss over a better company car. I love all of you social incompetent coders with your crazy ideas, even though you all think you are Mr. Robot! (Which is a great show by the way)
So, thanks Martina for being our mentor and a role model for all business women out there. Thanks to Shane McCarthy for being the Irish Gary Vaynerchuk and to the whole BlueChief family! Thanks to Peter Hunt for being like an Irish brother we can humiliate every day on Social Media. Thanks to Chris from Pinpoint for reminding me why it’s horrible to wear brown shoes on a black suit. Thanks to Nexus and BOIstartups for facilitating us and giving us such a great network. Thanks to Pat Carroll for building up such a sound startup community in Limerick and being passionate every day. Thanks to Startup Weekend Limerick for getting us started. Thank you startup world for my Norwegian cofounder Eirik André Nilsen with a humor more dry than the Sahara and hair like a rock star. Thanks for a all people I did not mention, but who are supporting me every day and helping me to not lose direction and faith. Thank you for making me smarter and more excited every day!
Perhaps you all give a fuck about all of this and I actually don’t bother at all. But all of that has real value for me! It makes me grateful to be part of the startup world and if you don’t get that, fuck you :)
