Why You Should Start with Startups?

Most people you meet and talk will tell you to join a big company, a famous brand.

People believe, a good career is built around big companies. Most of us, at least, while starting a career, dream to be a part of glamorous sounding, fortune 500 company. 

The big companies have limited high paying jobs and senior roles. These roles are filled by ivy league college grads and experienced professionals, rest of the roles are mid and lower management roles in which most of us fit in.

The thing is, most of us strive for these jobs without knowing that there are better quality, better paying, exciting jobs available out there, outside these big companies where skills matter more than the credentials.

These exciting jobs are available with companies that we have never heard of, companies which are yet to launch TV commercials and newspaper ads. 

These are the companies that have just crossed break even or have got its first funding, these are companies expanding their wings in India and abroad.

These are those companies whose hiring emails most of us ignore.

Why You Should Start with Startups?

Better Recognition For Your Work

While working for a corporate, there’s every chance that an important task you completed goes unnoticed by pretty much everyone. 

That applies even more to people working entry-level jobs.

If you’re working for a startup, chances are someone will instantly shoot a message on Slack or Email to the entire team congratulating you on completing a task or achieving a goal.

While it doesn’t seem like much, that positive motivation works wonders on an individual level.

More Freedom = Greater Responsibility

While working for a startup company, you’ll be given a good amount of freedom in your work. There won’t be anyone guiding you on how to achieve your goal or task set to you. 

While initially you might be a little confused as to how to get things done, this freedom will allow you to learn faster, exercise your creativity, and get out of your comfort zone.

Stronger bonding with coworkers

How often do you stay back late in your office to order pizzas and watch a football match with your colleagues? Chances are, you’ll be doing a lot of those with your co-workers at a startup. 

Most startup companies start small, and it is way easier to form bonds and connect on a more personal people when the team size is small.

Such an environment cultivates team spirit, strong bonding between co-workers and even the founders of the company, and a more unified vision towards achieving the goals of that Startup as they better align with your own workplace goals.

Leads to innovation

What happens when someone asks you to market a product and tells you that the budget is $0? Boom! Your first reaction would be “this can’t be done.” A few hours later, you’ll have found half a dozen ways to market the product with a $0 or minimal budget.

The point is, because (most) Startups have fewer resources to throw around, you quickly learn to get innovative, get more done with less.

Startup Companies pay more, in the long run

Startups without large amounts of funding don’t have enough money to give you a generous salary today, but that shouldn’t be your deciding factor against joining a startup. 

Instead, many startups offer equity or ESOPs to early high-value employees. These options rapidly increase in value as the startup grows and receives more funding.

Unlike a big business, small business do not hire to fill a slot. These small growing businesses do not have a huge org chart where you are working in one process unaware of the entire ecosystem. 

Why Small Companies are awesome?

In a small business you are not another cog in the wheel, you are an extremely important part of the system, and that means you take a lot of responsibility, you get to do a lot of stuff, on your own.

For example, If you are in sales you will know about marketing, you will know about hiring, you will know team management and resourcing too. 

Never imagine one specific role while joining a startup. Startup is a place that makes you jack of all trades, and will allow and expect you to learn and grow fast and that is why they are awesome.

How Can You Choose the right Startup

When a company is small the brand is yet to be built and all you can bank on are the people. If you are inspired by their idea, if you feel you will learn a lot from the team or the boss, then beyond doubt go ahead and join them. 

In not, well, move ahead to the next opportunity, there are ample of them.

If the company has got funding recently or in recent past then you will easily find it published on the web, that assures that someone who has better sens of business than you has already assessed the business and decided to invest, so you can too.

If the company is pretty old then you can easily decide based on company’s past performance numbers, which in most cases is shared by the company itself. 

You can also ask few questions and gauge, questions like, how many employees do they have in total, in what all cities are they present, who is the CTO if it is a tech company, who is the business head, etc.

Working with the best. Learning from the best

Entrepreneurs are those who seek to solve a problem by taking an innovative approach to it. 

Bringing yourself closer to people with such a mindset, working closely with such people opens up an interesting opportunity for you to learn from the founders of a company.

Not only that, you will yourself begin to approach problems differently, be it in any domain – work, life, etc.. And who knows, the entrepreneurial bug might just bite you, and a year later you might launch your very own Startup.

Go out and attend some interviews at a start-up, connect with some people on linked-in who are working in such companies, you will realize that the overall growth and learning that you get at an aggressive startup or in a growing business is worth taking a chance.

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