My Life in a Start Up

I finally made the plunge ....

You ask what, the title says it all!!! After years of working in blue chip companies I have made the move to work in a small startup and thought as I go through what to me is a novel experience share some of my thoughts, ideas, concerns, and life in a start up. It is life, isn't it, because saying Working in a Start Up wouldn't do justice for joining a Start Up.

First a little bit about the company, the company is a mid-size in terms of #of employees/customers/revenues/funding and a market strategy among startups. On one hand straddle the micro mini's of start ups with a few folks and an idea and on the other extreme are series D and beyond startup's with significant and growing revenue, stable go to market strategy, and an expanding waist (waste :0) line... We are smack in the middle, with the go-to-market strategy having gone several changes with a significant one eighteen months ago, several changes in management, and a product that has seen its up's and down's. We now have a promising portfolio of customers and revenues up and to the right :-), however, the success of the company is far from certain and that makes the move all the more exciting in terms of the impact.

I joined to handle the technology/engineering in the organization and my posts are primarily going to be focused on sharing ideas on how to develop strong engineering organizations in a startup and sustaining innovation/creativity that is closely tied to business results in a consistent manner. I also will share with you my personal discovery into a start up, its opportunities and challenges, and take you on the journey with me. One challenge started before I even started and that was the Operations lead leaving the organization and I in turn am now responsible for Technology & Operations. As you might know these two functions have you acting like Jackal and Hyde, with the technology side focused on delivering innovation to increase revenue or decrease costs for the company, while operations is a lot about effectiveness and driving stability into the operations. One is focused on the iterative product innovation, the other is all about the biggest issue of the day and interrupt driven (till Operations mature and even then constant interrupt driven priorities are a fact of life...