7 Reasons You Should Work For A Startup At Least Once

Working at a big corporate office might have its own set of benefits, but that shouldn’t stop you from considering to work for a Startup company. Sure, the corporate job might give you a better pay (initially) and other benefits, but it also comes with the standard 9 to 5 job routine, among other things.

Common complaints you will hear from people working for a big company is that there’s not much room to grow, and processes are slow as they need to go through multiple checks by various people in the hierarchy.

During my own time spent at a corporate office, I would have to put on those shiny formals and show up at 9 AM only to head straight to the canteen for some coffee. Also, big corporate offices often get uncomfortably quiet, don’t you think?

Do these complaints bother you too?

Then that’s just another reason why you should give your career a new shot in the arm by working for a startup company. And for those people who need a little more convincing, we have compiled a neat list of reasons to work for a Startup company at least once in their lifetime.

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. You’ll feel more motivated, that’s for sure. The recognition that you receive for completing your job, or for going that extra length to close a client, will be noticed by everyone, and you’ll be in high spirits to complete your next task even better.

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.

Of course, the added freedom also comes with a strong sense of responsibility. Since you’ll be the owner of your task or campaign, you’ll be given that extra freedom to execute it in your way. That also puts all the responsibility for that task or campaign on your shoulders. But at the end of the day, you’ll feel this strong sense of ownership for having contributed to the growth of the Startup company by doing your job well.

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.

Read more: When work can also be play

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.

Scarcity 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. This is something – working under tight constraints – you wouldn’t probably learn while working for a big company with a huge marketing budget.

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.

Even without equity or ESOP offerings, I’m not blindly asking you to go join a startup company and earn less money in the process. Rather, weigh the opportunity that you’re getting at a startup v/s the pay cut that you’ll have to take. While there’s a Risk in doing that, do the Rewards from say 2 years in the future outweigh the risks?

Chances are, you start with a salary that’s below average but end up making four times as much as your peers in the next two years. This could be because the startup grew quickly, you performed exceptionally well, a huge new round of funding got closed, etc. Think long-term!

Exposure to a wide spectrum of job roles

Employees of a startup company are seldom limited to the job role they were hired for. In a small, fast-growing startup, chances are you’ll be writing press releases for one week, handling their Social Media for another, and even giving your opinions to the Product & Design team during this time.

The point is that unlike a corporate job, where you sit in your cubicle and do the same job day in and day out, working for a startup company will allow you to explore multiple job roles across domains. You might have joined the sales team only to find your true calling in marketing.

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.