Looking for fulfilment? 5 Reasons to Join a Startup
The best place to find purpose and healthy challenge
When I joined food delivery startup, Deliveroo, back in 2015, my Aldi colleagues and bosses thought I was crazy.
I left the best paid graduate job in the UK to join a startup which few had heard of. I’d always known that startups would eventually be my home, but that didn’t make the jump any less nerve wracking. Looking back, it was one of the best decisions i’ve made, and I want to encourage others to take that leap too!
Below, I share my favourite 5 things about startups. If you’re not in the startup world yet, it should be enough to get you thinking ;)
1. You get paid to learn
I’m half a decade into startup life, and I feel like I’ve done multiple masters degrees…. strategy, marketing, business finances, project management, psychology to name but a few. Each day, I’m being paid to learn the same things that many pay a university £10,000 a year for. Yes the learning isn’t as structured, and sometimes even the CEO is making it up as they go along, but the rate of learning honestly can’t be beaten.
Also, consider the technological pace things are moving at. What you learn at university now may well be out of date by the time you’re in the workplace — the most relevant learning takes place on the front line of execution.
Tip: Whether it relates directly to your work or not, read 3 Medium articles every morning before you get stuck into your day. This process is proven to get the neurons firing in your brain to increase creativity, productivity and learning capacity!
2. Everything is a project
From building a product, to delivering a marketing campaign, to increasing the size of the team …. everything can be defined as a project with a start and end.
For a project management geek like me, this is amazing. You set your goals, use a bit of common sense and creativity to build a plan, ensure the right people are involved and onboard. Then, execute as best you can, deliver your goals, and conclude the project with a giddy sense of satisfaction …. All of this happens inside a matter of weeks or months. Who wouldn’t feel fulfilled after that?!
Tip: Even if you wind up running or executing a project that you don’t enjoy so much (everyone needs to roll up their sleeves), remember that it will be over before long and you’ll be on to something you love a bit more.
3. Mistakes are expected, and even encouraged
In a startup, everything is so new that you mostly work with educated assumptions instead of facts. As long as your assumptions make sense to you and your colleagues, then bad resulting outcomes are ok and shouldn’t be treated as a mistake. The best startups even encourage this, as each time is an opportunity to learn and progress.
A bad outcome or mistake = new learnings = progress
Compare this to the feeling you can have in a corporate environment when something doesn’t go to plan. You might fear you’ve lost your next promotion or that your boss thinks less of you. In a startup environment, where the rule book is not fully defined, you spend less time worrying about how you’re shaping up against preset rules and protocols.
Tip: Be sure to adjust your previous assumptions with your new learnings. Startups which fail have often made the same mistakes more than once.
4. You have purpose every day
Let’s get philosophical and think about the meaning of life. I strongly believe that life fulfilment comes with purpose and usefulness. Psychologists have identified an evolutionary need for purpose, it enables humans to accomplish things both independently and as a community, ensuring survival. In a startup you are a bigger fish in a smaller pond, what you do really has an impact. I’ve never felt more useful.
Tip: Think about this Ralph Waldo Emerson quote to work out what it means for you “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honourable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
5. Higher risk = higher reward
It’s assumed that in startups you have lower job security. Well, the Covid-19 outbreak has demonstrated that few jobs are really safe 🤷♀️.
It’s also assumed that startup jobs pay less. This is also not always true, however if you do take a cut initially, don’t be disheartened. Firstly, if you’re great at your job, progression will happen in fast forward. Secondly, in the best startups every permanent team member is offered share options (access to future share ownership in the company). If you help to build an incredible company, the future value of share options should exceed short term cash sacrifice.
Cash aside — surely the biggest risk of all is spending years in a job you don’t really love?
Tip: Consider your risk appetite with savings? If you’ve managed to save up for a mortgage deposit, are you going to leave that in the bank on a 0.5% interest rate for years? Or are you going to invest it in a property which might make you money in the long run, and in the mean time gives you a better quality of life?
Final Note
Some are hesitant of startup life due to its association with high stress. It’s true that there’s a fine line between being in a positive, high paced delivery mindset, to one of overpowering stress or anxiety. Whenever you feel stress creeping in, remember this quote:
“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
Marcus Aurelius
