A few things I learned from my young startup

I just celebrated my 2nd work anniversary at my young startup, a milestone that is difficult to imagine when you first walk in that door.

I left a shiny city tower, riddled with perks and benefits, and took the leap of faith into being a part of a fresh, product-led startup with a working prototype, a passionate CEO, and a whiteboard of ideas to change the world.

There are so many things I have learned on this journey. Changes were necessary to my way of thinking for the last 20 years. New lenses were required for me to be a part of this adventure. I regret not having kept a daily journal to keep track of it all. And honestly, if I did, would it even have made sense at the time without the vision to know it would be so impactful later on?

But, a few key lessons have surfaced to mind that I hope will be helpful to others also on a similar path. While they aren’t absolutes, these 4 key learning moments have been challenging for the people-pleaser, the perfectionist, and the collaborator in me. I have worked hard to rewire my brain, making peace with my change of thinking, to help make my company more of a success.

Not all users will like your product — Focus on those that do

In the early days, customer acceptance is necessary to justify your product direction and success. You try to take on each request to be accommodating with the hope your product won’t just stick but your user base will grow.

There are those that try out your product and provide a variety of useful feedback that you track, organize, and implement with fire lit beneath you. And then there’s the feedback that cuts right to the heart. The product isn’t as good as “hmmm,” your UX is poorly done,” or “I want a refund.”

I used to take every one of them personally. Didn’t they understand how great the product will be? Did they know how how far we’ve come? If the product was something they didn’t need, why did they try it in the first place?

While I still wish I could satisfy every customer and always try to find solutions for everyone, I have learned that not everyone will like my product. So instead of focusing on gaining approval from those that don’t love the product, I work harder for those that do.

Focus on customers who find value in your product and recognize them as your audience, your product market fit, and your muse of inspiration.

You can’t do everything — Put your energy into what has the most value

My product is amazing and I truly believe it is useful for anyone in any role or industry. This means I want to solve every problem, observe all feedback, and prove that the shoe fits for anyone willing to try it on. Which is exhausting. Not only me, but also my team. If you are trying to make your product be everything and do everything, it will fail. Being a little good at everything rather than being really good at some things doesn’t make for a strong product.

While focusing on features that support your product-market fit, one positive aspect is that you can narrow your scope and put your every effort into a focused set of projects, reducing the noise, prioritization, and neglect that can come with being spread too thin. By doing this, this strengthens your product message and provides a confident, clear story to customers and investors.

Once I shifted my full focus on the piece of the pie my product was going to solve for, the weight of world lifted and my vision became clearer. While there are still moments that diversions pop into the roadmap, we are able to justify with good reason and always check ourselves to make sure we are aligned on our goals.

When you have product focus, you can have greater peace in deciding what is most important for you and your customers.

Too much feedback can hinder progress — Find a balance in collaboration

I am a collaborator at heart. I like to work with others in cross-functional teams where everyone’s expertise comes together like a well directed musical.

When I first joined my startup, there were two of us. We sat in a room together, talked ideas all day, talked to beta customers together, white-boarded, ate lunch, grabbed coffee (many cups), and helped decide the company name and logo together.

We added a few more heads. We all still sat in a room together and met on every little project detail to keep aligned. Even if you weren’t technically invited to the meeting, you were still in the room and could offer an opinion.

But there was a point when, as more heads were added, these constant alignments were not feasible. While you want to make everyone feel a part of the company’s direction, process, and culture, the more voices in the room, the harder it is to stay focused and make swift decisions. Someone won’t agree. And work won’t move forward.

Given my desire to make everyone happy and always feel a part of the decision, this was a mental challenge for me to overcome until I was finding it hard to please everyone. While it felt corporate at first, meetings had to be scheduled in conference rooms with a smaller or more selective group. Scaling our team in this was critical for our success.

While I will always work hard to get feedback, share information, and align our team on our projects and decisions out of respect and unity I needed to recognize having the right people in the room to make quick calls will keep our young company lean and nimble.

Effective collaboration is recognizing that unity and alignment can happen at any point in the process through good communication and teamwork.

You aren’t a title — take advantage of it

One of my hopes in joining a new startup was to really know the business and to be a bigger part of day to day operations. When you are small, the divides between leadership and personnel or the silos between departments are rare because decisions are made fast and everyone works together as a small group to complete each mission.

My role as a product leader was, at many times, put aside to focus on other gaps or needs before other significant roles were filled. There were moments when I had to cut corners and felt like a failure as a product manager, because it was more important I generate online content for marketing or needed to attend sales calls as we did not yet have a marketing or sales lead yet.

While not being able to write my world-famous requirements as meticulously as I would have liked, I quickly realized that in any of my previous shiny tower jobs, if I ever crossed over my product manager line, I would have been ignored or admonished for walking into another department’s territory. But in startup, you don’t just have to wear the other hats. You get to.

I saw the opportunity and took advantage to learn marketing techniques from experts providing us direction. I enjoyed late nights getting to express my passion for my product through blogging. And I got to see and build relationships with more customers through support, sales, and product channels to hear their stories, learn their processes, and know their people.

Take advantage of the gift to be needed and given the opportunity to try different things with grace and gratitude from those relying on you to keep the ship afloat until more crew members join the voyage.

These points may not be earth-shattering but it takes a special breed of people to modify typical business expectations and practices and become more agile, flexible, and open to doing things differently. In anything you do in your startup life, don’t accept it at face-value but push it to its limit, find a different way to use it, or take advantage of it with an open-mind and heart and enjoy the treasures you will find along the way.