#34 - On working in an early stage startup

After driving 10,000km from Chicago to San Francisco, I started my summer internship at Zenful. For three weeks, I worked for my brother and his co-founder as they seek to revolutionise the way that mental health is treated at universities and workplaces. Working in an early stage startup provided me a completely different perspective to the work that I had previously experienced in management consulting and investment banking. While the world glamorises Silicon Valley and startup life, the reality is very different.

You are building something (great)

People start companies to create something that is hopefully great. The founders see a problem or a need in the world that is not being served. Then they take on great personal risk to solve that problem.

My brother and his co-founder started Zenful to scale mental health and emotional support for everybody. Mental health challenges are a growing issue at universities and have a significant impact on the lives of students. While schools are doing their best to solve this problem, it is hard to treat at scale. Zenful solves this problem unlike any other company or product.

The ‘building something’ element of startup life is very different to the world of professional services that I am used to. In management consulting, we generally advise clients on how to solve their problems. Increasingly, we will work with clients to actually implement the changes we recommend. However, this implementation usually leads to changes in business processes and the status quo, rather than the creation of something new. It was refreshing and exciting to work at Zenful on actually building something that will make a difference in the world.

You have to be biased for action

In a start-up, every person has to do something. A minute not spent taking action is a waste of your finite time and runway (dollars left in the bank account).

In consulting, a lot of our time is spent framing and conceptualising problems. We discuss ideas amongst ourselves and our clients and seek a lot of time building consensus amongst numerous people. While this thinking and strategising is also important in startups, your whole job is to make something happen. Action that is imperfect but in the general direction is much better than trying to think about the perfect action to take.

The rapidly changing nature of startups also means that you may have to pivot. This is when you change the focus of your business, such as the customers you serve or the product features that you are developing. The high likelihood that you will pivot means that it’s always better to take some action, because taking action is the only way to find out whether or not your business will succeed, and if you need to change what you are doing.

The lean nature of startups also means that there is no place for people to hide. If you aren’t doing things that are driving the company forward, it will be noticed very quickly and you should (and likely will) be removed.

Hours are long

At the end of my first work day (which started at 7:45am and was 12 hours long), I was exhausted. When I came home, I cooked dinner and slept around 10pm. Meanwhile, my brother and his co-founder continued to work after they returned home. Like most nights, they worked into the early hours of the morning before sleeping for a few hours and starting the whole process again.

Startup life is intense. When you have a problem that you are passionate about, and when success is entirely dependent on your effort, you work really hard. This is the complete opposite of big tech firms such as Google and Facebook, which offer pretty good work life balance and perks. This is because these stereotypical tech firms are now massive corporate behemoths instead of the intense startups that people picture them as.

Red tape is real and crazy

Starting a company in America is administratively burdensome. You have to fill out a ridiculous number of forms, applications and declarations. Many of these forms are paper-based and need to be mailed in to Governmental offices. If you filled out a form incorrectly, your application will be rejected but you might never find out about the rejection because the Government didn’t tell you or because they sent their response to the wrong address (all of which happened for Zenful). Even something as simple as payments are made complicated by the need to pay through cheques (a form of payment that have been superseded everywhere else in the developed world).

For a country that produces the world’s technology, it is disgusting to see how antiquated many of America’s Government departments and processes are. An ambitious Government needs to come along and digitise and simplify business administration.

You have to love what you are doing

 When you give up so much of your life towards and idea and a product, you genuinely have to love what you are doing. Both during and after my internship, I wondered whether I would ever want to start my own company. The answer is yes – if I found an idea that I really loved and believed in.

My brother and his co-founder genuinely love what they are doing and the business they are building. I’m excited to see what they achieve in the coming months and years.