Are you considering taking a position at a startup?
I know this sounds like the intro to one of those you may be entitled to compensation commercials.
How do I know?
Letting a small budget hold you back
I always struggled with this one.
The problem: theres almost never more room in the budget.
It’s free, every week, in your inbox.
Are there less expensive tools or platforms you could use?
Could you build what you need yourself?
My very own Zapier login.
I entered the world of automation and never looked back.
A wise man namedErik Hatchonce said, Your best employees are your biggest pains in the butt.
So be (like I am) a pain in the butt.
But when youre speaking up, see to it youre not coming across as a know-it-all.
So, as you’ve got the option to imagine, this didnt get me very far.
It was about as good as not using my voice at all.
What I came to realize the hard way was that everyone has their own communication style.
Its all about using your voice effectively so it drives your desired impact.
Nows the time to get creative and take initiative.
Spend some time observing whats going on at your startup.
Are there any pain points youre noticing?
What are your companys goals for the quarter?
Write out a list of things youve noticed.
It also allowed me to understand what the priorities were and which big initiatives I should be focused on.
Did they hire you to write social media content, but now they need someone to write sales emails?
Years ago, I was hired by a startup to facilitate their customer onboardings.
Instead, I saw this as a learning opportunity that doesnt come around often.
I started listening, observing, and asking questions.
What were the immediate needs of the company?
Where could I step in?
What were others working on?
Not setting boundaries
Work isnt an all-you-can-eat buffet, but it can quickly become one if you let it.
But pretty soon, youre going to start getting really full and feeling kind of miserable.
My burnout reached the point where the mere thought of opening my laptop made my skin crawl.
I hadnt taken a vacation where I was offline in over three years.
Instead, he looked at me and said, I never asked you to do that.
It stung, but he was right.
In reality, it was doing the opposite.
Moral of the story: take time off, enjoy your weekends, andset your boundaries.
Being inflexible
Things move fast.
Like faster than Jimmy Johns delivery.
This can be frustrating, and Ive let my frustration cloud my ability to see the bigger picture.
I was always fighting the quick change.
I remember a time when I was in fact working on an industry analysis.
I felt defeated and angry.
It was time wasted all that work for nothing.
Once I was able to get past my emotions, I realized it wasnt actually a waste of time.
Fast forward to today, and I still use what I learned during that project to help other businesses.
So, dont be me take it in stride and think about the skills youve learned.
Being wary of feedback
Feedback just hits differently at a startup.
Like having gelato in Venice, Italy instead of the local coffee shop in Ankeny, Iowa.
But as it turns out, its most definitelynotthe end of the world.
I was always the person who would ask for feedback from anyone who would give it to me.
Whether it was positive or negative, I wanted to hear it all.
Where could I improve?
What was I doing well?
Am I meeting your expectations?
And for the most part, the feedback I received was pretty positive.
Just the pat on the back I needed to keep excelling and give my ego a little boost.
But whenever I received negative feedback, it always felt like a punch to the gut.
On the outside, I took it very well.
I would thank them for their feedback and tell them that I would work on it immediately.
What was going on inside was a completely different story: I would go into a mental tailspin.
They dont know the full story.
That feedback just wasnt fair.
I would find all the reasons they were wrong, and it would consume me.
As much as I touted that I was open to feedback, I really wasnt.
Talk about your ideas and plans and how youre going to tackle them.
And dont be afraid to talk about your wins, too.
At first, I used it as a way to mitigate being micromanaged.
I also used it as a way to check that I was working on the right things.
I quickly realized that it also helped avoid duplicate work.
This is a learned skill.
It took me a while to understand what over-communicating is and what it isnt.
It looks like youre doing slides 11-20.
I also made a note of that in our activity tracker.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Communicate:Hey Kate, Im working on some of the slides in the monthly marketing presentation.
If you say it in Slack, someone who checks your project management app wont see it.
Keep that in mind.
And I still let that thought bang around in my head sometimes.You are qualified.
You were hired because youre worthy of a spot on a rocket ship.
All that matters is that you get comfortable with being uncomfortable and not having all the answers.
In reality, I almost quit my first week.
They would inevitably fire me anyway, so why make it worse on myself, right?
I knew I was being ridiculous.
The answer was a healthy mix of both.
Specializing instead of generalizing
Every startup will need specialists eventually.
That means learning and executing on marketing tasks while also juggling sales initiatives.
Or onboarding users while also digging into data analysis.
Generalizing can teach you a little about everything and helps you see the full customer journey firsthand.
One area I always wanted to venture into was marketing.
Did I have experience?
Was I really good at Googling?
I dove right into watching courses, reading blog posts, and talking to professional marketers.
And you know what?
I actually was successful.
By that, I mean that we were making money off of our marketing initiatives and bringing in leads.
There was just one problem: I didnt like marketing.
It wasnt, but I still learned something immensely valuable while filling a role the company desperately needed filled.
This articleby Isidora Prohaska wasoriginally published on theZapier blogand is republished here with permission.
it’s possible for you to read the original articlehere.
