Work Life | Startup
Life In A Startup
What does it feel like to work at a startup? In an environment that is hustling ALWAYS.
Life is quick. Everything happens within a blink. And my organization was nothing less than that and the way I joined was also within a blink — Oh! This involved me moving to another state also. In a blink :p
I was desperately searching for a job right after college, and I was interning at another company which I chose over a unicorn company’s offer — just so that I can do something that was interesting. But soon I found out this internship was not my calling, and thus began my desperate job search! And after a month of blood, sweat, and a lot of tears and frustration, I had a call for this company which I could not even pronounce! A couple of 2–3 hours long calls’ later, I had bagged an intern at this company. Along with it came a HUGE baggage for moving cities for the job. Chennai to Hyderabad. I had 15 days to make up my mind and 5 days later I saw myself packing my bags with a heavy heart to leave my favorite city and my home!
Apxor! [pronounced as app-zor] A tiny startup incubated inside IIIT-H, making an insane product intelligence platform for mobile apps, and I visited the office for the first time. A very sweet and formal person took me to the office, or should I call it a room that was smaller than a classroom? But I saw 16 pumped, hustlers and a noisy team (it was evening! I realized it was quite common to discuss all the stories in the world at that time) and that’s when I realized another game-changer — I WAS THE ONLY NON-TELUGU SPEAKING PERSON IN THE ROOM!
Starting from traditions like always bringing sweets when we went home, to cake cutting for birthdays, going for snack breaks, caffeinated all the time from the cafeteria, screening cricket matches during any time of the day, and even staying over at office during deployments, breakthrough discussions — everything is done as a team! Even while bringing snacks back to the office, an order would be given for everyone who didn’t get to go for the break! Initial few days, everything had to be translated for me. I would be clueless when something happened and someone after looking at my clueless face would say “English!” or translate it for me. Being the only non-telugu person was never a barrier anymore!
Home away from home was what the workplace was like! I’d hate going back to my PG because I had to stay alone. Whereas in office, there’s always someone to talk to, learn from, or even place the countless number of swiggy orders! I even had the chance to attend a Telugu wedding for someone who I had just met (who’s a sweetheart now!) I never had to feel excluded! How much good vibes are too much good vibes? Probably there’s no answer to that!
I was interning under the position of a Customer Success person, but here positions, roles, and responsibilities were so flexible that by the end of one year I have now contributed to every team possible! — Sales, Marketing, Support, Product, QA, and even a developer! They say in a startup, things are flexible, but I saw this and experienced it, and damn it was a cracker! Being in a company with a mature-established product, being a CSM taught a lot! How to talk to customers, how to master a product in a week, how to , how to excite customers handle escalations and SO much more. If a day had more than 24 hours, this environment would hustle and power through in those extra hours!
The amount of trust they place on their employees is INSANE! And the biggest motivation for you to do your best and bring all the guns blazing is just their trust that you’d do more than awesome! You’d see the team working day in and out, dedicated to make every customer happy and build a revolutionary product — you would not want to let down! The number of calls that I could pull off and the energy I got to attend every call was just this motivation and a year later, I am still proud of the work we do.
A year later, when I look back at the events that have happened there, with so much professional development and tons of memories, I know work is fun if your team is fun and supportive. Imagine when your boss doesn’t yell at you during a peak escalation — not because he doesn’t care, but because he’s ready to listen to you and understand why you did such an action in the first place and at the end of the discussion he would only help you understand the product better and prove that we are the best in the job we do.
And when you start believing in that, you know you are going to excel in the tasks you get and the calls you attend and the emails that you write.
For a product that treats its customers like their friends, we grew to make an impact along with them for their business instead of them doing the work by themselves!
Too much hype already? Are you curious to see what we hustlers do and what grenade we are building that is ready to change the way you see product intelligence and development? Check us out here!
