Discover the 5 killer W's that you must know about startups
Based on personal thoughts, ideas and experience.
Why take the risk?
To make a difference in this world.
While this might sound too obscure, it is quite self explanatory. Your decision on joining a startup should be related to nothing more than the purpose behind building a new company. Is the startup delivering just "another existing service" out there or does it have sense of uniqueness?
We recognize this uniqueness by "competitive edge" that will make you stand out from the competition and win it without competing.
Transform your unique idea to a unique service and add up the spice with some of your special "competitive edge" ingredients that (hopefully) can help make this world a better place to live, one way or another.
As long as you have your unique idea in mind, your age is only a relative number related to experience and practice. Of course, the more experience you have, the more wisdom goes into the company, but that's directly related to the type of service that you intend to deliver.
Don't underestimate the amount of experience that you will gain, it might actually be greater than any limited position out there. You'll be mostly managing multiple roles at the same time, therefore your insights and capabilities will be questioned.
Keep in mind that it's a win-win situation, in order to gain experience, you will have to share your experience and success factors with everyone on board.
Don't keep on hesitating about either joining or keeping a close eye making uncertainty your greatest enemy. You might only consider yourself in the 'founding team' when you dedicate your time and effort to build the core pyramids of the company that will help handle the earthquakes that might occur.
You have the freedom to take the opportunity or to simply stay on the safe side, like everyone else.
Imagine it as if it's one of the most challenging game of all time, if you don't play, you'll never win.
Take the time to find the right people to start the company with, agree on the core believes and values that you share between each others and want to be part of the company. People will come and go but you will join to (hopefully) stay, hence make sure you know the team capabilities and behaviors on handling impediments and down falls.
You will be spending most of your time with this 'family', that's why it's very important to recognize the team expectations and thoughts about all the major steps, have a certain acknowledgment and belief system shared upon all the team members.
Sum it up by asking yourself 'did I feel the sense of belonging with everyone in the team?'
>Not convinced yet? Take this team as a real example.
Where to fit?
Be the master of the position that drives you.
Everyone has different hats and roles as a start. Make sure that your 'dream position' is there, do you see that you can contribute your passion to the purpose of the company? If yes, then you'll be the owner, the boss, the employer and the employee of yourself, only. You don't want to start bossing around your partners, do you?
It is crucial to know that you need to put the right effort in the right place. You'll absolutely find exponential experience, test your capabilities on high level decisions that you have never imagined that you might be responsible of.
Meanwhile, that will also push you to be responsible for tasks that you're just not interested in, but obliged to take care of them, simply because there is no one else to do it for now.
>Not convinced yet?Scrum Master, that's one of three roles that I played on a daily basis. This empowered me to gain more than I could have in other companies.
Bottom line, the most important factor is you, you're probably 'worried' about not being successful at everything you do which keeps you hesitant about decisions, shaping an even bigger question:
How to be continuously successful?
You can find infinite sources, books and quotes on how to reach ultimate success.
Some of the sources describe it as "Read everything, forget nothing".
While that might sound a simple task for Chuck Norris, it's not for me :)
In fact, I summarize the answer in a book, with one page, containing only one sentence
This doesn't mean that you have to always take yourself too seriously, but it clearly requires to really believe in yourself, initially in your will, if you are considering to be part of a startup company.
Not convinced yet? That means it's the right time and situation to add your ideas/comments, I would love to know what you think!
Reward! You finished reading, feel free to keep this wallpaper as a small reward :)
Elie is a technologist and educator with a will-driven mindset. He builds all sort of software. Mostly he likes his work, leadership, traveling, laughing and other thousand things. He loves you.
