Things to know before signing up for a startup

A small note: I’m only an observer here providing processed information for those who seek. This no way implies anything about any company. Please don't send me a legal notice I'm broke.

Get your own insurance

Of all things to do when you get that pay check, get yourself and your family a health insurance. Indian middle class families are one hospital bill away from bankruptcy. Early stage small startups cannot afford to give out insurances to their employees when they have a business to setup first, sounds obvious but easy to ignore and you end up prolonging to buy one.

Responsibility - A boon and a bane

At a small startup, be it how big of a funding they may have gotten or have got the next instagram replacement PMF - product market fit (great problem btw, please solve this), you are responsible for how well something gets shipped - like a marketing campaign that gets people to ping you for OTPs but gets great return on investment by increasing traffic to your site, a code optimization that reduces that AWS bill by 500% (now amazon owes you money) or even a nice little animation that wows it’s users. Every effort you put in matters in growing the company, this doesn’t mean you have to give up on work life balance, but it won’t be any easier to do so in this chaotic environment. You are your own shareholder, your own shareholder value creator, your own HR manager. It’s a balance that’s best learnt from someone you admire in the industry perhaps (atleast that’s what makes it somewhat easier)

I like this scene particularly from an anime called one piece. It's a nice perspective about team work and responsibility in my opinion. But also, like all advice and "gyaan", take it like a pinch of salt. There are no rules about how things should be, everything is relative to the context they are in.

Unpredictable markets - but it’s always calm before the storm somehow

I have no clue how to expand on this, but it pretty much sums up on how things go. It’s always a “in hindsight I should have seen that coming” or “it was going too smoothly than usual”. The best way to stay prepared is to keep reminding these proverbs I guess. There’s always a small last minute change that ends up cascading into a big rewrite overnight. Don’t say nobody warned you, atleast I tried to.

No problem is too small, Not every solution needs to be big

You would also be surprised by the amount of things that can get shipped over a day, the amount of things that can be learnt and have you pumped through out the week. Not everything is gloomy, there have also been many times I used to go “how is it already friday? I was just gearing up!”. If your work can get you excited and pumped like this then congrats, you struck gold. That’s a rare thing that not everyone gets to experience.

Sometimes, some trivial work that you do, sticks around for a long time. It's surprising and kind of fulfilling. Small things that make you happy.

Freedom, but with a tax

Freedom to take new initiatives, to collaborate and work on stuff you generally wouldn't do are great and works well in a supportive environment. The caveat is that it comes with a time tax that can either yield growth or sits as a money sink. You would have to be open to get your ideas shot down as investment of time on a project have many unforeseen cases that are not obvious as a first timer.

Set your own goals - progress your skills

I like this scene from a manga called Haikyuu (a story about volleyball basically, need to read from right to left direction). It kinda depicts how things evolve overtime.

In this economy, your job cannot be just to do work - get paid - go home happy. When you work at a startup, there has to be an equal outcome of results for everyone involved. There will be times when you question your existence in the company, can the company really survive without you? are you just doing plumbing work and getting a paycheck at the end of the day. There should be an end goal that you want to meet with that job, here's a progression example: from designing a poster for a marketing campaign to leading a marketing campaign that targets 500k users signup. What you are capable of needs to progress, slowly or rapidly, change has to be the only constant (what a line right? I should write more). And that can be possible when you have set goals of achieving something.

Does this mean you should prioritize yourself more than the company's goals. Not really, honestly it depends, the ideal situation is that your goals and the company's have reliance of each other.

It's a long term game

Even if you leave the company, the work you did there doesn't leave you. The amount of context you have will be massive than you expect. Before you commit to a company it's best to work with them for about 6-8 months cause that's how long it usually takes to get to know about how things go in the company. Now that is a bit of a huge ask to have an unreliable contract for 6 mos and then leaving to hunt for a suitable workplace, but be open to this possibility cause many companies are taking this approach since this is a long term game. Early stage startups need reliable members who can be a solid foundation.