Why you should work for a startup? PART - I

Although a lot of my colleagues have pondered over this question through their many articles imparting vast amounts of knowledge; this is the question that I most often come across while hiring. So, am going to be the sassy that I am and go right ahead and tell you WHY you SHOULD be considering working for a startup:

1. Challenges:

If nothing gets you high like a new challenge and you would not come out of your chair till you have finished that piece of code OR finished the latest website you were designing, then startups are the place for you. For most of us a fat pay cheque is less interesting than a fresh challenge. Working in a startup is taking the world by its horns.

2. Your own space:

Most of the startups run on a tight budget and you are everything from the office boy to the team manager. Most of these startups have a one man team and this means your own space. You run your team the way you like with complete creative freedom. Also, teams are very young and receptive to new ideas which then become a norm helping everyone to think out of the box. This is the reason startups create a very conducive environment helping and enriching each of its employees.

3. It is your company:

In how many companies can you hang out with the CEO of your company and have a Pizza. When I go out with my college friends and tell them that I was out Saturday night with my CEO having a beer, the look on their faces is worth capturing (I might get that one and put it on our flicker stream ).

The point that I am trying to make is that every employee in a startup has a sense of belonging to this one big family. Every one has a sense of belonging that larger corporations often lack.

In a larger organization, where division of labor is taken a little too seriously, every employee is like a cog in a larger machinery, easily replaceable.

4. Learning opportunities:

As I have already mentioned, in a startup everyone has to do everything. So one day you would be designing an interface and the next day you would be getting an AJAX script to work on the same thing. This gives you a lot of exposure to the industry and you learn skills that help you throughout your professional life.

If I don’t mention the downsides to working in a startup I would be looking at only one side of the coin (how clichéd). In my next post I talk about the downsides to working in a startup.

The bottom line is that like every other profession, either you would be laughing your way to the bank OR be back on the job sites looking for a fresh opportunity. Working in a startup is a gamble, but one definitely worth taking.