Being an Entrepreneur Changed My Life as an Employee

Link: Being an entrepreneur changed my life as an employee

Intro

Nine of ten startups are going to fail. In this article, Alex made a point that even a failed entrepreneur experience made positive and profound changes in his career perspective.

Highlights

In 2014 the author co-founded a startup.

In our 2-man startup, my official title was the CTO responsible for developing the first prototype for product/market fit.

At a high level, the idea was to create an app that would allow people to use their phone instead of the public transportation ticket. The business model was to get a small cut when people conveniently buy their tickets on their phone

However, it turned out to be technically infeasible at that time (some security feature wasn't in place for NFC). So they have to shut down.

After 3 months of prototyping we learned that we were too early to the market — a classic startup pitfall

The startup experience exposed him to a broader range of activities. This made him understand better what interests him and what does not:

Although I my main task was to work on the prototype, in practice a big part of my time went to market research, discussions about funding, usability tests and learning about the law.

For me, the technical aspects of the job was the most interesting part. Anything else was the chore I had to endure at that stage. This experience helped me know my own interests and strengths better. It was distracting, to say the least.

Also, it forced him to think about what he really wanted.

I didn’t want to be the “mobile ticket guy” no matter how much money or pride was at stake. Not now at least.

I was expecting my first child around this time. My wife really needed me. I caught myself stealing family time for the startup.

Spending time with the loved ones is people’s biggest regret on their deathbed.

Oh, by the way, the author is living in Sweden. This is an important context.

You need to keep in mind the environment I’m operating in. I’m in Sweden where the more money you make, the more tax you pay. The healthcare, education system and unemployment benefits are all paid by that tax whether you use it or not. Had I been in another country (like the US) where you are in charge of most of those my choice could have been different.

After the failed startup, the author was hired as the sole frontend developer for a new medical software project, a project stuck to building anything except a login page for 18 months.

Coming out of entrepreneurship recently, I went straight into asking the important questions: What problems are you going to solve? Why is it a problem now? Have we validated the problem? How is it different from what’s already in the market? Who are the users? What’s an acceptable time to market? What’s a realistic one? etc.

“I don’t start coding”, I told myself decisively, “until I clarify the problem we’re solving”.

I didn’t ask a single question about the tech stack or set premature deadlines. In a few weeks, I made the first hi-fi prototype and a year after we had our first beta rolled out to a hospital in the Netherlands.

His performance and impact even surprised him. The startup experience changed the author's perspective on how to be an employee. It marks a milestone in his career.

I was bolder, took more responsibilities and wasn’t limited by my title.

I was working on my personal brand.

I learned all that mattered to me before starting my next journey.

My next gig was a technical product manager TPM. This followed with some more senior development roles, a tech lead position and a staff engineering position.

What I’m trying to say is that once you’re in charge of everything at a startup, it will leave a permanent impact in how you see a business. It gives you a new perspective about how to be an employee.

The author summarised the lesson he learned from the entrepreneur experience:

- I stopped optimizing my career for money and started focusing on my personal branding and growth.
- I stopped working for others and started doing what I though was right.
- I stopped focusing on money and started focusing on the business model and end user needs.
- I stopped solving large problems individually and started taking the lead and motivating others to work together.
- I stopped focusing on being rich and started focusing on being happy.
- I stopped overworking and started improving my work/life balance.
- I stopped taking shit from others because at the end of the day, they were just another employee.

Some of the above may sound cliché, and some may sound idealistic. At the end of the day, they are all personal choices, and every choice has a consequence. The same experience may reveal different choices for different people. The important thing is that one can accept the consequence. The author found his answers in the startup experience. The answers themselves are rather less important.

In the end if you decide that startup is something you want to do, make sure that you get your priorities right. If not, you can learn while going through the experience. Life is learning!

Closing Comments

For some people, it would be better to be a rockstar employee than a mediocre founder, both financially and happiness-wise. This is really about how you would like to focus and spend your time.

But nowadays in many places to be a great employee requires being able to think like an entrepreneur. You need to have a personal brand, take ownership, and treat risks wisely.

So, entrepreneurship is useful even founding startups isn't your thing.