Cups of Inspiration — A Intern’s Story

Getting a startup through the beginning phase is tough. This is what keeps us going.

Originally posted on December 25, 2016

At oneUp, there is a limit in front door keys. Me being an intern, I’m in the office working every day from 9:30-ish to 17:30-ish. I have the privilege of having one of the few keys to the front door. Sometimes, I’m being asked to be at the office at 9 am, so I can open the door for some people. A few days ago, this was also the case. Jef, partner at oneUp, asked me if I could be at the office before 9 to open the door for some folks, and if I could get 5 large coffee cups at the nearby coffee place. ‘Ehm, sure Jef!’ I didn’t have a clue of why he would want this, but I’m an intern so I went to go get it first thing the next morning.

As I exited the train station the next morning, I walked my way to the office and entered the coffee place to get the cups. After a few minutes standing in line, it was my turn. A young, pretty, girl stood across the counter. ‘Can I help you, Sir?’, she asked. ‘Shit’, I thought, as I felt slightly uncomfortable. ‘She is probably going to think I’m cheap or something.’ ‘Ehm, can I get 5 large coffee cups, please?’, I asked while turning red, and unsure of the girl’s reaction. ‘Sure, here you go!’, she said without looking weird at me at all. ‘Oh, well.. tha-thanks..’, I stumbled. ‘These damn cups better be worth it’, I thought.

I entered the office just a little before nine, walked upstairs and turned on the coffee machine. Just when I wanted to pour myself a cup of coffee, someone rang the doorbell. It was Jef. He walked upstairs and saw me standing with my coffee. ‘Dude! You got the cups?’, he asked. ‘Hey! Yes, I’ve got them, just as you asked for.’ Jef opened a kitchen drawer and grabbed a knife. ‘What is he going to do?’, I thought. He took the cups and walked to another room. ‘Watch closely’, he said. ‘This is going to be the best example of Startup Thinking.’ He turned the cup upside down and started cutting out a piece from the bottom. He started in the middle and cut a few centimeters down. Then, he did it again just a little besides the first cut and met the point he stopped cutting earlier, so he could remove the piece he just cut out. I still didn’t have any clue of what was going on. Jef grabbed his phone and put it in the just cut-out spot. ‘Fuck tripods man, this is the shit! Startup Thinking, yeuhh!’.

That day, a few interviews were being held for a project, and the interviewees needed to be filmed. The by Startup Thinking powered home-made tripods were necessary to get a good view of the interviewees’ faces. Only then I understood the philosophy behind the cups. They offer support to the phone, boosting the value of its core business: raising the view of the camera so that faces are better visible. The cup does exactly what oneUp does, the cup is oneUp.

This story happened to an intern two years ago, a little after oneUp was born. His story still inspires all of us at oneUp.

Find your own source

As a startup, it’s tough to get through the beginning phase, and all unnecessary costs that can be avoided should be avoided, without doing any harm to your reputation as a company toward clients of course. The Startup Thinking cups are a perfect example of how startups work in the beginning.

Now, with oneUp being out of the beginning phase, these cost-friendly actions aren’t necessary anymore. But it shows where we started as a company. The memory of it makes us think how far we have come. A few of those cups are placed around the office, so that every time we walk around, we see them, and they give us strength and inspiration.

Building up a startup from the scratch is tough. You have that idea, and you have an idea of carrying it out. But sometimes, you need a boost. Find your own source of inspiration, and give yourself that strength you sometimes seek for. And I’m sure you’ll get through that tough beginning phase as well.

Get in touch: whatsup@oneup.company