Working at a startup for those who are not familiar with it is both risky and adventurous experience. Job descriptions like “entertainment and learning box,” “room for rapid advancement,” “an office to the galaxy,” etc. are mostly used when startups are hiring.
While working for a startup can be described as a joyful, genius, experimental, and life-changing move, it’s not always happened to be true. Not all of the startups have the budgets to handle their needs or not running by a wise founder who can observe different aspects of a phenomenon
Working at a startup is not always a fun or comfortable experience, yet it is different from any other companies you’ve been working for. Read these seven aspects of working at a startup to learn more about it and realize if having a job at a startup would suit you or not.
Forget Your Job Title, You’ll Go For Much More
Startups are made of people as teams. Responsibilities will be shared, and everyone is not doing the same thing every time. It is probably different from what you may typically perform as your job. For example, if you’re a seller in a market, you will know that your routine is about selling different stuff. You’ll likely not take care of accounting or decorations.
Startups are not following the same rules, so you’ll not describe your role in your head easily. In a startup, you’ll take care of different positions. Sometimes they’re in your skills category and sometimes they don’t. That’s why working at a startup will sometimes take you out of your comfort zone.
You’ll Probably Get Late Paychecks
As you may know, cash flow is one of the most critical matters in a startup’s life. Many startups fail just because of money and accounting problems. The fact is, sometimes the receiving amounts are not matching payables, thus paychecks maybe late even by weeks.
Of course, startups with solid basements and strong CFO don’t face such problems.
If you think you can’t bear with these latencies, reconsider about working at a startup.
Over-Optimistic Atmosphere
You probably heard that the founders of a startup are talking about having 300% monthly growth or anticipating to close a multi-million dollar funding shortly. Well, they may be wrong.
Many startups tend to have an over-optimistic vision about what they’re doing. This is much as they sometimes ignore any negativity which causes delusions which are not matching the reality.
This kind of optimism is both a pleasant and not so good atmosphere which exists in startups. Believing in your path is valuable, but when it gets exaggerated, it will fade out the reality. So it can make it risky to work there.
You’ll Need to be Comfortable With Change
Working in a startup is a whole different journey than what you may experience in different daily jobs. Routine is bizarre in a startup.
Every day has a new thing to do from changing the office decorations, changing desks, transferring offices, and changing the responsibilities. You may never repeat a day twice. Different meetings and plans can change your responsibilities all in a different aspect. Sometimes even the whole company’s path changes and you may see so many variations in the team and staff the same as the strategies of the company. The only routine existing in a startup is change.
Different Working Times
Working in a startup is different from 9-5 daily jobs. Founders work too much like sometimes 16-18 hours a day, and sometimes they expect you to do the same. Sometimes you get calls at 2:00 on midnight or sometimes you’re called to go to the office when you arrive home.
The process of a growing startup is not stable at timings.
The Company Gives, the Company Takes Away
Startups tend to reward their teams for their effort and also willing to refresh themselves and create some space between office works and their comfort zone. Small companies usually make entertaining plans like catered lunches, tickets to local events, camping programs, etc. but sometimes after growing up the company, founders realize that they can’t manage these types of fancy stuff so they may cancel them. Yet it is not bad news since they replace those plans with practical bonuses like health insurance or higher wages.
It is an exciting adventure
Working in a startup is an adventure of growing up to a new level. You can learn a lot of things in a very short time like a month or two, and it will match the amount you learned in a year or more in a normal company. You’ll face your responsibilities much more than before and will grow out of your comfort zone.
You’ll grow your abilities and will be able to handle tasks you could never do before, and you can observe your exact impact (in an understanding and measurable way) on the success or failure of your company.
It is not an easy path, yet it is highly rewarding.