Welcome to the world of creative people. You will love it!
‘Are you out of your f***** mind!’ they said. ‘You’re making a big mistake by taking this risk’ they said. ‘Think about it, you still have time to change your decision’ they said. ‘No good has ever come from leaving a global brand for a startup’ they said.
They were wrong.
A couple of weeks after leaving a multi-billion dollar global IT behemoth and joining a 110 member design & innovation startup, I can confidently say that they were wrong.
My first day at Moonraft was a revelation. As soon as i entered, I saw some bicycles parked inside the office, a little further there was a hoverboard lying around…i felt as if i was entering the Xavier’s School of Gifted youngsters from a Marvel Comics franchise of X-Men.
I saw a couple of guys playing around with an interactive touch screen wall display while discussing neural networks. There was another group which was animatedly critiquing the UX design of a popular mobile app. I sat close by and tried to eavesdrop, they were making some really valid points about how the app designer had overlooked some basic human tendencies. I started to get a good feeling about my decision.
Over the next couple of hours i interacted with designers, sales guys, business leaders and all of them seemed to have one thing in common — their love for design. People were trying to gauge how savvy and sensitive i was about design, if i had a penchant for simplicity in design, what is my definition of style? Do i get bothered if something is not designed well?
Luckily my answers seemed to go down well with them…phew!
Despite being subtly grilled, I seemed to enjoy it all…because i knew that the driving force behind all this, was the passion and love for design which was embedded in the company culture at Moonraft. A design and innovation company which has its culture and values aligned to its business…has definitely started off on the right track.
I left work that day feeling vindicated against all the ‘nay-sayers’.
Later that night when i was sharing my first day with a friend of mine who is a UX designer by profession, she said ‘welcome to the world of creative people. You will love it!’
I tend to agree with her.
