If you are looking out to join a company or want to switch your job, a question might be asked by some recruiters or even your friends: would you like to join a startup? Now, this could be a tricky question given that many young aspirants do not even know what this word ‘startup’ means in terms of a company. So, let’s start from the start:
Starting with a Startup
What is a startup?
Though it should be clear from the name itself, but we still will resort to some accepted definitions. According to Wikipedia:
A startup company or startup is a company with a limited operating history. These companies, generally newly created, are in a phase of development and research for markets. The term became popular internationally during the dot-com bubble when a great number of dot-com companies were founded. A high tech startup company is a startup company specialized in a high tech industry.
So, we can deduce that a startup company would be the one which does not have long operational history. What happens if an organization or a company has a long operational history? It could have hierarchy, pseudo-corporate culture, worn-out and old operational and functional practices; old infrastructure; closed attitude to new ideas; and many more things. Caution: this can’t be applied to all of them.
Now, with the advent of entrepreneurial spirit that is sweeping almost every part of the globe and especially India, every 5-15 professionals are joining hands to make a start-up. So, the question ‘whether you should join a startup or not’ becomes repeatedly-heard and should be analytically answered.
I would speak from my own experience as I have just joined a startup called hCentive, which is like an outsourced and operational unit in India being managed by Indians who live in US.
- Work load would be more but work culture would be open. This would mean that there would be no regular working hours but regular work that you will need to deliver.
- Tight schedules sand-witched between leisure hours.
- A lot of brainstorming over administrative issues.
- Opportunities in contributing to the development and growth of the team.
- Lesser competition between team-members.
- No bossing around by seniors but mentoring in certain terms.
- Opportunities to be creative, extra-curricular and to think out-of-the-box.
- Lot of entertainment opportunities along with hard-times of deadlines.
- Unstructured work-flow but this gives you chances to explore your own multi-dimensional personality.
- Lot of infringement of employees but you can make good contacts for networking.
