My four operating principles of early-stage startups
Nov 10, 2022
Working at a startup has become great way to accelerate growth - both professionally and personally. Though work-life balance is often seen as mutually exclusive, this isn’t the case for startups. And not for bad reasons. By wearing more hats, writing the foundational handbooks and getting a deeper emotional attachment to a company’s vision; being part of a startup will provide you with rare experiences often not had elsewhere. Experiences that lead to new perspectives and values that affect your personal operating system; and vice versa.
Now that I’ve been at my early-stage startup for just over a year, there’s been some noticeable learnings worth sharing. Learnings that have overlapped into my personal life which is why I’d like to call them “operating principles” - a term widely used by the likes of Ray Dalio and Tiago Forte.
Prior to joining the team, I initially wanted to opt for a larger startup with large Series A - C funding just to provide some sense of security and structure around my career trajectory. However, due to my short-lived experiences at two other great startups, I wanted to give early stage startups another try. Fast forward and I am grateful for the experience so far, even including the turbulent phases.
Here are the four operating principles I’d like to share.
You’re here now, make it count
Being at an early stage startup is hard as is. However, being the youngest makes it even more difficult. At least for me. Most of this stems from being surrounded by Heads all with some entrepreneurial backing of their own. While it can be inspiring most of the time, it can also be quite overwhelming. You become subconscious of the work you’re putting in as well as the quality. You question whether or not its actually moving the needle or is it just busy work.
Standards are often very high particularly at early stage startups where the stakes are high. There’s no little room for error and there’s even less room for doing work that doesn’t matter. Failure to comply to both will probably inflate imposter syndrome.
There’s a strong culture of needing to make a mark because there’s this (romanticised) idea that when your startup “makes it”, you can look back and say yes I was a part of that. While romanticism can be dangerous in other circumstances, I think its crucial in early-stage startups for two reasons:
It puts the pressure of ensuring that you keep a barometer of meaningful work - in the sense of producing stuff that moves the needle which in turns help with day-to-day “productivity” where outputs outweigh inputs
It helps you be a long-term thinker where you evaluate how your work will shape the work of that in 3-5 years. You focus on long term projects over short term trivial tasks
To the above point, I think the quickest and most simple (not easy) way to overcome the imposter syndrome is to earn your seat at the table. And the way to do this is to push your initiatives. Don’t just suggest or present them in a slide deck, but really action it, test it and measure it. Then present it to the key personnel. At the end of the day, no one really knows the answers; especially at an early stage startup. Everyone is trying to figure it out as they go and its up to you how you can accelerate these learnings - even if that means failing because mistakes and things that simply don’t work for your business.
As Paul Graham says, you have to do things that don’t scale.
Another point worth mentioning is to really engage in knowledge sharing processes. And if there’s none, then create one. As busy as people can be at early stage startups, getting access to their knowledge and building synchronicities between teams is invaluable especially as projects become bigger.
Drawing the line between inspiration and distraction
The more driven you are to want to play a bigger role at your startup, the more inclined you are to learn. I find that the best way to learn is through growth stories and case studies of high growth companies and understand what worked for them. Learning is imperative, almost indispensable for operating at a startup. However, too much learning, can be a bad thing.
I learnt this the hard way. There’s been countless times where I’ve gotten little to no work done simply due to the fact of how many tabs I had opened or how deep I’ve fallen into a loophole of information overload.
And while this is great, it can definitely draw you away from your main focuses. You begin comparing your startup to others, forgetting that theres a big difference in customers, industries and time. So really, there’s no one playbook. Lot of marketing leaders will give their insights on what worked for them but at the end of the day, each startup is unique.
This is especially true for any startup operating in a new industry or even category.
So when it comes to looking for inspiration, digesting the information with a grain of salt is very important.
As of late, I’ve gotten better at this since being exposed to the concept of “building a second brain” from Tiago Forte. I highly recommend anyone looking to better organise and utilise their digital information to look into this.
Doing the dirty/grunt work
Paul Graham and Sean Ellis, in founding the idea of growth hacking, have both conceded that there is indeed no such thing as the silver bullet. You see startups almost glorify their AHA moments and the intelligent growth hacking processes implemented to create growth flywheels and loops. However, truth be told, many of these don’t happen, at least not without the foundational groundwork necessary to reach that level.
As a marketer, you want to be the one who coins the new growth hack. You want to be tthe one who 10x’s growth. However, doing the grunt work is far more imperative. Without these operations and focusing on the efficient logistics, there’s no way to lay the platform for future growth. Pioneering a new industry, there’s no silver bullet. No right answer. No set handbook.
An extension of this is to also silent the noise of competitors. Maybe not completely, but for the most part, focusing on building your company’s moat should be the priority. I think this is probably the most relevant to startups starting a new category industry. No one really knows the answer and with the name of the game, a lot of the time its fake it until you make it. So don’t drink the kool aid and focus on how you can make your startup the best it can be.
Titles don’t mean shit
This is not so much an operating principle, more so, a personal reminder. I’ve been going through a toxic cycle of comparing myself with others from different companies where I begin to feel less than my work. Titles are nothing but relative. LinkedIn is full of people self serving their egos and its important that titles at early stage startups are almost non existent. Being an operator has no label and more importantly no room for stroking egos. What you do and your contribution are the only things matter.
“Go find the thing you can commit to for 10 years, because that’s how long it’s going to take, minimum, to get a good outcome. You have to enjoy the journey because there’s no guarantee on the outcome.”
For those looking for further reading, I highly recommend the following articles:
