Most young people working at a startup have aspirations of starting their own company some day. If you’re in this camp, I think its important to aspire to more than just being a great employee. Your tenure working for someone else is an awesome time to also familiarize yourself with the unique challenges of starting and executing on something. Gaining insight into what it’s actually like will better prepare you for the day you ultimately go out on your own.
As an employee you often have the luxury of:
⁃ Structure: your work starts and ends at a certain time at a designated place
⁃ Direction: an understanding of what you’re to accomplish and how to do that
⁃ …
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I’m on my 4th job since graduating in June 2010. So yeah…compared to most of the people I graduated with, I’ve had an extremely unconventional career thus far. In short, I look like a Mexican jumping bean.
When I ask a good portion of my classmates what the plan is, I often hear a familiar ring: “I’m going to spend two years banking/consulting, than go to a private equity/hedge fund, than go to business school…than some day I’m going to be happy in Greenwich Connecticut!”
That sounds exciting and fulfilling.
At one point during my undergraduate years this sounded pretty good. But my benchmark of good was everyone else in an atmosphere where the blind followed the blind. Looking back, its strange to …
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I am happy to share that I have joined the SinglePlatform team. I am incredibly excited about this opportunity to work with an awesome team and the future of this company. At the onset, I’ll primarily be working with startup sensei Kenny Herman on business development. I could not be more fired up about this.
Leaving building your own product to join another startup?
Building Sfter from scratch the past 7 months has been an incredible experience; one defined by personal and professional growth. I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity and the chance to have worked with some awesome people. But at this point in my career I think the chance to join an awesome team and learn from some …
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I vividly remember the final battlefield demos at TC disrupt. The strange thing is, it’s not the demos that stick out in my mind, but rather a small fraction of one charismatic founder’s time on stage. When the cohort of decorated judges asked him about his background, he jokinginly admitted he spent three years in the gallows of Wall Street. The disenchanting tone of his answer provoked a supportive response from the audience. Yeah down with Wall Street!
For the last year I’ve spent in the tech ecosystem, I feel like I see people cheering on Wall Street drop-outs as well as overtly hating on the industry wherever I go. I definitely drank this Kool-Aid when I first touched down in …
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So how is (enter startup name) going?
Many people answer this question with some iteration of “good” regardless of where things stand. I’ve talked with founders who I know are flailing, yet they still come up with some anecdote that things are “going well”. I’m not surprised at this behavior; we live in a world that says show your best and hide the rest. I just think it’s an ineffective, unsustainable paradigm. So save the dog and pony show.
When people ask “how things are going,” it’s far more productive to be honest and authentic. I have far greater respect for and more meaningful interactions with people that are.
Why You Should Always Be Authentic:
Intimacy:
No one is perfect. Everyone just pretends to …
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In honor of Labor Day, I wanted to write a post about what I’ve found to be one of the most critical factors for finding satisfaction at work in my own life.
One of the things I’m most passionate about is personal development. Rarely do I receive more satisfaction than when I feel like I’m growing as a man, a son, a friend, and a professional. Within any context, learning is at the core of personal development. I’ve found that consistently learning has had the greatest correlation with my satisfaction in the workplace. Conversely, it’s when I feel bored or that my learning is restricted that I’m truly unhappy at work. With a finite period of precious time on this Earth, nothing …
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