Thoughts on being employee # 1 — First week.
I’m 28 years old and I’ve had many jobs in this span of time. I’ve cooked south-east Asian woks in France, managed IT projects in Canada for a client in Puerto Rico while collaborating with devs from India, worked for a construction company in Mexico and sold organic honey while working for the USAID, among other things.
Some might say I’m lost in life, others think I can’t say no (probably), but what I think is that all these seemingly random career changes have gotten me to where I am today. Which is totally a good thing.
All that burnt rice, unorganized Trello boards and packaging decisions for my honey jars have contributed to me being the first employee at Conference Badge, an easy-to-use platform to create name badges. And although it is not a billion-dollar idea, it is certainly a million-dollar one. This is an actual quote from our CEO Philippe Lehoux. I gotta say I love this self-awareness, super important in this day and age.
I’ve worked for a couple of startups in the past, they were promising, (aren’t they all?) but after a few months you could see they weren’t lead by real entrepreneurs, the ones that understand that building a business is not a short-term-billion-dollar-valuation-in-6-months thing, it’s actually a long and hard road.
“Although it is not a billion-dollar idea, it is certainly a million-dollar one” — Philippe Lehoux
What excites me the most about this new opportunity is the team I’m gonna be working with and the responsibility they’re trusting me. They have a great mindset and focus on the things that matter, they’re in it for the love of the game and not of the current entrepreneurship hype that’s only about glamour and “coolness” of having your own company.
Also the fact that Conference Badge is 100% bootstrapped, has a healthy growth rate/revenue, solves a real problem, and that I’ve known Etienne, Rafael & Philippe for over year helps a lot.
I started working here exactly a week ago, after returning from a long and memorable trip to my hometown, Mexico City. To be honest I was quite nervous to start this job, still am, because although I just started 7 days ago, I don’t want to lose this and also because I am their first formal employee, so they are taking big chances with me too.
My job here is fairly straightforward, grow the numbers. It is a clear goal, but the journey is quite the challenge. And I love it.
Yes, this will sound like a cliché, but part of my job-hopping can be attributed to an unchallenging environment and conformism. I’m pretty sure that won’t be an issue this time.
I will make this a series of articles about my experience in Conference Badge. If you’re interested in knowing how this story unfolds, follow us.
