Life lessons from being a part of an early stage startup

An early-stage startup is like a baby. It’s shitting multiple times a day when it’s a toddler. Progressively, potty-training becomes a part of its routine and it gets more predictable and regular.

- M

Most surfaces at my five-days in the office day-job are scribble-friendly. There are tonnes of markers lying around and anytime someone feels the urge to make an imaginary box in the air, the mighty marker comes to the rescue. Communication seems to get all the more powerful and far-reaching when you combine multiple forms of it (here, visual and speech). In meetings too, I find myself reaching for a marker to doodle on the tables, write down parts of the words I’m hearing, if I’m not the one saying them, and sketching designs of a product page flow. Something about the comfort of being able to do it no matter who’s present in the conference room takes the pressure away from having to “behave professionally and impress” and zaps me back into a problem-solving mode—the latter is a much more useful alternative to the former. If Obama can be a doodle-head in the Senate, maybe we all can benefit from a little more wandering of the pen too.

Working at a startup that’s still in the early stages of the lifecycle means unpredictable work load, uttermost devotion for client requirements (especially in a B2B setting) and celebrations for all kinds of wins, no matter how tiny. I think that’s a fitting analogy for living everyday life.

I’ve learnt the importance of community—especially to struggle with. Being down in the frustrating trenches together, working to get that one last requirement straight can ask a lot of one person, but never of a team if there are some drinks and pizza involved later. The daily post-lunch walks are always as much for the mind as they are for digestion.

Lastly, it feels like I’ve wandered around in my professional life to stumble into product management and now that I’m here, I fit in like a jigsaw piece snapping right into its place. You might have heard of the age-old figure of speech about an unknowing Jack.

Jack of all trades, master of none

You may or may not have known that there’s more to it:

A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes is better than a master of one.

So I’m dabbling my way in multiple realms of product thinking, design, development and testing. It’s a fine line, a balance. I read somewhere that a product manager can be likened to an orchestra conductor—they don’t play any single instrument by themselves but they help utilise the brilliance of the players to create a symphony! I’m getting to learn so much each day from the brilliant players in my team that sometimes, I just stop and feel the glimmers.

Being here makes me realise that the parts of life that are the right mix of challenging and doable are the most satisfying ones…