Lion behind the scene
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Much more than a Saturday school, it’s a happiness therapy !
You have probably heard that Lion is THE hype saturday-training for the curious ones to be equipped with reflexes to navigate through the chaotic start-up ecosystem.
To me, Lion is much more than a school : behind the various talks from inspiring entrepreneurs or charismatic key employees from Doctrine.fr, Heetch, iBanFirst, and much more, I discovered amazing people, who believe in strong values, and who shared their secrets to succeed like a boss.
❓ Who are the Lions ?
What is the typical Lion ‘persona’ ? I have noticed 3 kinds of Sun Session Lion.
- The purpose-seekers : they are emerging switchers. They need a stimulating environment to discover what they like and what they want to do. Basically, they are taking their therapy shot each saturday.
- Intrapreneurs : they are convinced big corporation will change thanks to their energy and they want to adapt all they learn in their structure, to make things happen.
- Vanguardists : they have already set a foot in the start-up door but look for tools, reflexes and methodologies to open up their opportunities.
Most of them (76%) are here to get to know the start-up ecosystem… and a fun fact : 20% of Sun Session alumni work for a start-up, whereas 50% of the Lion alumni community ! If you are looking to switch, then Lion is probably made for you !
Anyway, whoever they are or what they are here for, Lions all share the values of the jungle : pay-it-forward, dare, share & care.
🐆 3 key values of the jungle
Values shared during the Sun session sounded like a mix between Design Thinking rules and The Four [Toltec] Agreements.
Here is how we embodied the values all along the Sun session.
1) Pay it forward : do favors without expecting anything in return
- Get passionnate about anything and learn, without having a specific objective in mind. Your experience will make sense, a posteriori.
- Be autonomous and pragmatic : at Lion, we help each other to solve problems, but it is our responsibility to look for answers. The channel #askmeanything is the most representative example of it : key employees, founders, or CEOs come to answer your questions during one hour on slack !
2) Be brave : say yes to challenge
- Learn to learn : Lion alumni can learn by doing a project during a month, alone or with a group of people from their choice. Either you ‘Dare’, or you ‘Do things that matters’ for the Lion community, or you ‘test’n learn’. Anything, but you have to make it real and learn from it, and pitch your learning at the end of the session !
You are facing a wall, either you break it or it breaks you — Jean de la Rochebrochard
3) Never take it personnaly
- Embrace feedback : give some, and ask for it ! It is the best way to improve how you do things. For instance, you can ask the meeting’s participants to give their Return On Time Invested (ROTI) after the meeting. The one who gives you a Zero should have spoken up or left the room !
- Feedback by design : Lions give their feedback each Tuesday to the organizers to help them improve logistics, talks, contents, they get the feedback of the jury after their end-session pitches etc…
💙 Secrets for your surviva️l
1) Manage your time as a machine
Working with or in the start-up ecosystem is very demanding, so better to be organized to manage well your time and focus on the task that bring most value.
- Take a step back : At the end of the week, take half an hour to ask yourself which tasks you performed are low valued, and delegate them.
- Keep some buffer : avoid to be overflooded by unexpected events by keeping time for organization and emergencies. For instance, keep youself a 10 minutes buffer between 2 meetings, or reserve one day (Wednesday) to handle emergencies.
- Timebox everything : lunch (45 minutes), meetings (30 minutes), even the slots you dedicate to feed your thoughts (for instance, dedicate two slots per week to read selected articles)
2) Don’t be a Mickey Mouse !
You don’t want to be voiceless and too friendly !
- You see it you solve it : as employee of a start-up, you are responsible for solving the problems you spot. Start-ups live in hope, thus in risk. Closing eyes on a small issue can have huge impact later on.
- Asking why is the best way to start. If you start a new job tomorrow, a good way to start asking why is to build a discovery report to change things that could work better.
The ambitious ones do complain ! — Oussama Ammar
3) How to avoid zombie start-ups ? Here are a few tips
15–20% of start-ups are toxic : they don’t have a purpose, miss a proper culture or do not align the incentives with their ambition. For more, read this article by Mathias Pastor.
- If the unique reason for living is the amount of fund raised.
- If the company doesn’t own its technology : start-ups should have the perfect control and knowledge about their product.
- If incentives are not aligned with objectives.
- If even the founder does not know why they are recruiting you.
- If they lack trust and transparency.
