The most positive spin (or perhaps the most “corporate” one) I could give to my first full-time professional startup experience was that I learned a lot: not just a bit more about healthcare billing and SQL queries, but something broader about work, a lesson I thought I had learned at BCG - that people matter, and are the main determinant of your day-to-day happiness. The sexiness of a project or an industry can fade in luster, but the day-to-day motions of the folks you’re with are what will keep you dreading or looking forward to work in the morning. Trauma bonding is real; if you’re going to be turning comments on a deck at 1am or trying to crack some seemingly undecipherable decline in a customer’s revenue you’re going to want to be with people you think are, above all, (1) intelligent, (2) hardworking, and (3) enjoyable to be around. For the most part, BCG did a remarkable job of bringing those types of people together, but every company is different and startups are especially volatile as the N is so low. Another project team at BCG is often only a few months away at most if you need it; another team in Startup-land is another end-to-end recruiting process.
I initially began pursuing the “out” of the recruiting process, despite the slog of the last recruiting journey I went on. Conversations over the course of Thanksgiving break with long-time friends convinced me that an MBA might also be an option, and so I applied there also. Mostly, the recruiting slog this time was similar - a combination of ghostings and early-on rejections that can sap confidence, alongside the occasional “so close!” opportunity that doesn’t quite convert in the end. But a LinkedIn DM from a recruiter turned into a call while I was on the CalTrain to the airport, which turned into three interviews scheduled all at once over a ski weekend, which turned into an on-site that Monday, which turned into a series of reference checks (thankfully, with folks I consider not only the best people I’ve ever worked for but also close mentors to myself professionally and personally).
I can’t remember when it started, exactly, but sometime recently I started to get a bit more spiritual. I don’t mean crystals and voodoo, but I refrain from using religious as I don’t think it neatly ties to a particular belief system. At some point I began developing this new mantra for myself; my goal was to focus on (1) dropping the ego (and if you know me, you know that this is going to take a fair bit of effort), (2) working hard, and (3) being “nice” - doing the right thing, treating others kindly, etc. In short, I was trying to address some of my personal faults that I’ve had for a while - cockiness, a bit of laziness or lack of discipline, and the tendency to occasionally be a dick.
As it turns out, I got an interview for HBS and walked out of the room thinking that I had blown it, but I chose to attend an interviewee reception nonetheless. The new gig had done their last reference call that morning, so I figured I’d be hearing back either that night or the next day about how things went. HBS had brought some alumni to chat with, and in between asking them about their thoughts on the potential new role I got “the email” (the good kind!). I’m barely able to string sentences together; I can’t even really think of the right questions to ask, and another interviewee comes up to us; it turns out this person has experience at the same company that I got the offer from, and that they’re more than willing to walk-and-talk about their time there.
I took the job.
What’s the magic moment? Is it the fact that two minutes after I got the job, I met someone who could give me the nitty-gritty on the company that I’d be working at? Is it that the timing of it all coincided with the startup deciding on a re-org that didn’t do me any favors? Is it the fact that a VC fund, which should presumably be able to post any job and get a flood of applications, decided to reach out to me directly? Is it that the experience they were looking for - former consultant + technical background + some startup experience - just happened to mirror my career path? It’s hard to tell, perhaps because the whole thing feels like it was… orchestrated?
what I learned from my startup experience
People matter. At BCG, the brutal reality would quickly set in that the most important driver of your day-to-day happiness was the team you worked with - especially your manager. That applies outside of BCG also - more than anything, I realize I want to be surrounded by people are motivated, brilliant, and pleasant to be around, since (as I’ve learned the hard way) talent density beats talent mass. Tangentially, I’ve realized that being friends with coworkers may have been an artifact of BCG Houston and “College 2.0”.
Recruiting is hard enough. Getting the stars to align on background/skillset, culture fit, and logistics alone is hard; throw in salary constraints or title/level requirements and things only get more difficult. I felt this way despite spending just ~5 hours a week; a friend of mine that’s a founder said he spent up to 40 hours a week on recruiting alone. Being rigid on not wanting to pay someone $140K vs. $110K is not going to save you $30K; it will only ensure you’re unable to get the best talent.
You want to be in a profit center. Ultimately, I was in a support role - whenever customers were upset about the performance of our product, I would be called in to help diagnose the issues and suggest a path forward. This is ultimately a complex and important role - but ultimately, it doesn’t bring in revenue, and it isn’t all that close to the buildout of the product. I was in a cost center, and therefore had to fight to get Excel (approval time: ~weeks) and Accelerator Keys (approval time: ~weeks). This was a stark contrast to BCG, where I was literally the product - the operating principle was to buy whatever was reasonable and necessary to do the job, including ginger/turmeric shots on Uber Eats.
I’m not super technical, but I like building things. Despite majoring in Electrical Engineering (with a concentration in Data Science, no less), I realized that I truly am not interested in writing code, or more accurately, debugging someone else’s slop. I do enjoy building things - whether that’s spec-ing out a new tool or building the first pass - and I love it when people tell me that the tools I built are making their lives easier.