How to be a startup employee: a framework

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Being a startup employee is the new hip thing. While a few years ago young companies had a hard time recruiting talent that only sought salary or stamp, now job applications flush at an insane rate, just ask whoever is responsible for HR at hot &co’s. In my view it actually created an adverse environment where young founders are unequipped to correctly parse between valuable superstars and unfit hires. For those that are either starting or currently at a startup role and wish to avoid the latter, I share my view of the events that shaped my growth as the 6th employee of a now 120-people team.

1 - Accept your role will change

Although there is no such thing as a role in an early stage company, you probably joined to do something. You might have been recruited because you had a specific set of skills, or maybe because you were simply smart and founders or managers believed you could handle a certain job. No matter the goal of your hiring, whatever you might be doing now will most likely change in the short term, whether for voluntary or involuntary reasons. The earlier the stage, the sooner this will happen and willingness to embrace new challenges, new technologies or new processes and teams is a characteristic that overachieving employees tend to showcase. Accept that those who survive are the fittest, not the strongest.

2 - Don’t fall asleep

You have now understood that whatever you are doing might not be the same for long, and the only way to be up and ready for the next challenge is to be self-aware. Don’t. Fall. Asleep.. Although everyone seems to quote that “startups run at a very fast pace”, no one knows what “pace” is! It’s quite simple: it’s the volume and frequency of new challenges and roadblocks a startup resource needs to tackle. Considering human resources are the largest and most valuable resource, and you being one of them, keeping yourself ahead and up-to-date, specially cross-fields is the only way to answer these multiple challenges. Don’t forget: you are directly competing with someone in the same role as yours working in a competitor. If that person learns faster, deploys better or executes harder either (1) your company will lose or (2) your company will recruit that person to replace you. Aim to always stay ahead of the game.

3 - If you’re lucky, you will recruit your boss

Let’s be honest: you might be on top of your game, an A-player, super smart, but your probably pretty young and unexperienced. If you look at startup dynamics, the earlier the stage, the higher the risk, therefore it’s easier to recruiter young, energetic, potentially-rockstar, people like you. Regardless of how smart the team is, there comes a time where more experienced executers need to be recruited, not only to take the company further but also to develop and grow these junior rockstars. Realise that today you might be leading your whole team, but tomorrow you might not fit the shoes (maybe you never managed a sizeable budget, or the team is larger than can handle, or goals are more aggressive than you’ve ever hit). Young employees who accept that helping recruiting their future boss is a positive experience are more likely to reach the fast track: not only you get a mentor, as you’ll learn new ways of managing a company or a team, and you’ll even have room to go deeper or more technical in your field.

4 - Either be a “Jack” and Accept your Ending or Specialise

It’s very typical for early startup joiners to be “Jack Of All Trades”. In fact, this is exactly what young companies need, their MacGyvers and James Bonds. And this “role” might probably be the sexiest one. You’ll experience different things and never be bored, but there are now two scenarios you should account: (1) you probably recruited a manager to lead your area and (2) as Clayton Christensen says in the Innovators’ Dilemma: “small markets don’t solve the growth needs of large companies”, aka a “Jack’s” performance generally can’t reach aggressive metrics and KPI’s in specific areas because their expertise is to find, test and deploy initiatives, not grow them and optimise. There will come a time where your value to a startup as a “jack” starts decreasing and the need for specialists starts growing. Either choose staying as a fixer and find a new company where that execution is needed or find a role that gets you pumped and ace the execution.

5 - Do what no one wants to do

I will guess you, as a former task-master now decided that you will be a ruthless executor at a specific area and show that you are the rising star of your new leader’s team. One of the biggest advices I’ve ever received was “Do what no one wants”. Risk management makes you climb the ladder in a multinational, risk management in startups makes you irrelevant. Jeff Huber, a former VP at Google is a known example on this risk-taking, choosing to lead the Google Maps team, a role no one desired due to the complexity of the product and operations, which led him into the coveted Larry’s Page Leadership team. There will always exist that role, project or initiative that’s either boring, mechanical, unvalued or even too complex for anyone to want to risk their (already non-existing) current role’s comfort and change to a demotivating new job. But you should do it, and this should be your motto. Founders value risk takers and proactively accepting a challenge no one wants drives credibility, which is priceless.

6 - Adjust ruthlessness towards everyone

If you took the bold move of choosing a role or task no one desired, welcome to a hard life. You are now the CEO of your project, and in the beginning it will suck. If you read any acclaimed founder biography you will likely realise these people were ruthless leaders. Whether they were obsessed with particular settings of their company or industry or they were fearsome, brilliant managers, they weren’t shy of being destroyers. And you shouldn’t be either, even as an employee. Being ruthless will make you achieve your objectives regardless of the obstacles, will make you standout when founders need someone to lead a new initiative, or are looking for someone to step up into a leadership role. If you already chose a complicated role, the only way to cut through the jungle is to be aggressive and put 150% sweat, blood and tears into it.

7 - Discretely and humbly, brag, but also celebrate others’ ego

Your attitude as a startup employee must be a perfectly balanced paradox. While building and executing is without a doubt a team job, plenty of actions will be likely individual. Everyone knows how startups are stressful, probably the salary is reduced and conditions are limited. Apart from working driven by your founder’s vision, the only other thing that can power your motivation are your achievements. When you do something that adds value and nobody else was doing (or even able to do) you should let others know you killed it. Brag about it, celebrate yourself. And now humbly appreciate the congratulations and go back to work. Also, keep in mind that your co-workers are in the same place as you, so celebrate their bragging and fuel their motivation, because without them you might find yourself without a team.

8 - Have an end goal

You might have joined a company for a specific role, but, as your founder has a vision, you should have an end goal. All that was mentioned previously are hard events, and the ultimate thing that will drive to stick with the company will be your end goal, and you should hustle to be surrounded with everything that gets you closer to it. If you join a company to become a future CEO, focus on getting the most time with founders and team leaders, learn finance, recruiting, communication. If you want to be a VP of engineering maybe you should spend time with a technical team leader, but if you want to be CTO try to learn how to manage engineering budgets and have roadmap vision. Make sure you excel at your core job, celebrate your victories and use that leverage to get close with those that can grow you into your end goal.

9 - Change before you have to

Jack Welch coined the phrase “change before you have to”, alluding to the necessity of innovating within companies and teams. Changing only when forced will kill you. In the startup world, changing before you have to must be applied at a personal level: realise when your drive or passion are no longer enough to motivate you, or maybe you are no longer learning as you want or deviated too much from your end goal. Be self-aware and change before you’re forced to do it, even if that means hard decisions.

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Did you ever face any of these situations? Feel free to comment and share, follow at albuquerquing or connect on linkedin and check what I wrote before:

• What is a Full Stack Marketeer - Part I
• How to know if you should hire a MacGyver or a James Bond for your startup
• What we did to grow student marketplace Uniplaces by 1000% in 2014
• To all entrepreneurs: Make Your Startup a Founder’s School
• Why I Joined a Startup Instead of Google
• Instead of becoming an intern I became CEO