Hello again, if you haven't read the first and second parts, I encourage you to do so now, then come back here again.
Two and a half years passed by now in the company that I was working in, I have learned what I wanted to learn and I felt that its time for me to jump to the next thing. I remember the last call I had with one of the founders, she was emotional about it, thanked me for all the years at the firm and told me that she can see my bright future, and wished me all the best, it felt like leaving family behind, but sometimes you have to make some hard decisions for the best interest of everyone involved.
If you remember my friend from my story here, of how I became a PM, he was the one encouraging me to explore product management and offered me a job at his company and I accepted it.
Little back story, I met my friend Zaid in 2012 while I was working with the American startup, his company was building our platform, so I managed to get to know him as a client and then as a colleague, mentor, and almost as an investor but that for later part of the story.
I talked briefly in that article about what I learned in these two years and the experiences I was part of, but today I am going to talk in detail about these two eventful years.
- Give the people you work with a chance to show their trust and don't micromanage. We were in a startup back then with limited resources, no HR department, no Sales, and no Marketing either, so each employee was an important asset to the company, wearing many hats and trying many things. What I loved about the management was giving us the space needed to show our skills, show us how is the end goal looks like, and leave it for us to do it the way we think the best. Also caring about each employee as a family member, not a cliche as some companies might advertise for themselves, but in real action; any employee's problems or plans were treated very seriously, if someone wants to continue university or take a course or improve their English Language, the company would invest what is needed for that goal to be achieved and if a family member of any employee is looking for a job or needs an internship or want to explore the Tech industry as a career shift, it was welcomed with an open heart, we had so many cases like that, it was truly a family.
- Have a sense of ownership for everything that you do. The trust and the environment that the company created instilled in us urgency and ownership. It was the first time in my life acting as if it was my own company, and most of my colleagues felt that too. so I would sit on the weekend and think of new processes, initiatives, or plans for the department and the company, and what was great is having an ear from management to listen to these suggestions and help us try to apply them if possible. That didn't leave me till today, working in a company and feeling that you don't work for them, you own your part of the work and you take pride in it, that distinguishes you from everyone around you and it may present you with opportunities like no one else.
- Try many crazy things, dare to dream big, and tolerate failures. The ambition and the dreams of the founder were unbelievable, he was always trying new things, experimenting in new fields even outside the core of our line of work, and I was lucky to be included in some of these crazy adventures, aside from my work to help our clients build their best products, whether its big companies, startups, international organizations or even governments. The side experiments were very exciting to me and I manage to find the time to do them, whether it's building an MVP and trying to sell it to that government, researching a new industry and building a presentation around it, I learned tons of things, and we failed in a lot of things but that gave me the liberty to have crazy dreams and aspirations and not to be discouraged by setbacks. That wasn't all shiny and beautiful, I had my personal share of failures as well, tanking a presentation to an important client, not handling a meeting properly with a difficult client, etc but it was never handled in a discouraging way, it was clear by management in action and not words that if the damage can be contained then this is one of the best ways to learn and evolve as an individual and as a company.
- Juggling many things and still doing an ok job at them. I am someone who gets bored very quickly and working directly with the founder on many initiatives, taught me how to learn things very fast and then apply it where it's needed and then on for the next challenge, that trained a muscle in me that allows me to be capable to handle and juggle many projects, initiatives, products, and ideas. It was very hard at the beginning, but I would say trying to manage your priorities, your time, and your energy helps in juggling as many things as possible, it was not all perfect, you are going to miss important things, and you will put something on the back burner, that's part of the price you have to pay, I am not saying it is a good thing for everyone every time, we were doing it because we were experimenting and trying to see what sticks. But looking back maybe it was not the right way to go, having a laser focus on what matters may have yielded better results or focusing on specific industry problems or type of business, or market would have been better, no one knows. As they say, we Live and Learn.
- Building a network means giving, giving, and giving. What I learned from seeing the founder in action, helping as many people, and companies, giving his time, expertise, and knowledge for free, and investing in people, relationships, and products, it's like a compound interest that people owe you in the future. That truly taught me how to build my network and my reputation in the field. And when you need help or referral or anything you can think of, these people will be more than happy to help you. A little caveat, you have to do it with authenticity, not doing it because I want someday for these people to pay the favor back, people can tell if you are being authentic or not! Do it because you want to help others and enjoy seeing them thrive in their careers and companies.
- Don't be the smartest one in the room. I have worked with brilliant engineers, developers, designers, and other team members who taught me invaluable lessons, and sometimes felt like an idiot just by hearing them speak of things I know nothing about, this feeling is important, you don't want to be the smartest one in the room, then you will minimize your chances of learning and expanding your horizon. It's not much about the hard work that you put in, although it's important, but what you are working on and whom you are working on with matters the most, that is one of the biggest learning that it took so much time to understand and grasp.
I left the company after two years, I only left because I wanted to open my startup in the education field, more about this next time!
As always, please leave your comments and learnings so we can all benefit from each other's perspectives. See you next week in part 4.
