A day in a life at an early-stage tech startup
With the recent interest in startups in popular media due to success stories every other day, often the real on-the-ground stories get messed up amid the glitz and glamour. We decided to shed some light on what actually happens in a small early-stage startup — the most dangerous yet exciting phase of any company finding product-market fit. This is from our own experience currently building Seedly — Singapore’s first automated budgeting solution!
Here’s a fun fact: “99% of startups die at this phase” so yea, you get my point :)
A startup is only limited by the founding team’s resourcefulness, dedication and passion to solve the problem they have identified. More importantly, the only goal for this small group of 3 to 5 people is to survive until the point that they make a product that people love.
Team Setup
In an early stage startup — everyone on board should be product focused, where all members are committed to making the user experience great. The mentality is much like a potent mix of a Cockroach + SWAT team where though small, the team has to be unconventional and quick to adapt to the situation. Here is how a typical team is structured, it can be be just 2 people to begin with.
Engineering team: Hackers
- Backend Developer — Database, Content/APIs management
- Frontend/Mobile Developer — Converts the designs into actual interfaces
- UI/UX Designer — Designing the interface based on user experience
Growth team: Hustlers
- Marketing — Graphics, Visuals, Content creation
- Finance — Fund-raising & basic accounting
What happens everyday
- Develop product and fix bugs
- Speak to users to get feedback, Observe metrics
- Narrow down what makes sense for next version (separate signals from the noise)
- Rinse and repeat from steps 1 to 3, pegging growth to an important metric (Daily Active Users, Weekly Active Users, Transaction volume etc.)
Bonus Thoughts
So with any productive & efficient team, here is our internal collaboration stack which we recommend:
- Google Drive — For all documents, files and collateral
- Slack — Communication internally with different channels
- Trello — Digital scrum board and to-do lists
“The only way to win is to learn faster than anyone else”
-Eric Ries
So from here, you should be able to get started to draft out what your startup team should look like. Be ready to make alot of mistakes, but more importantly, learn from them :) Celebrate the small wins.
p.s We are launching this week to help you save time and spend smarter! Get your free beta access here.
Cheers!
Kenneth, on behalf of the Seedly team
