NicheLabs is a startup, trying to compete with global software brands delivering products to clients worldwide. We are a humble company started small with the will of our co-founders and all their experience put together. They have been working with multiple organisations, startups, communities and people to get that bulk of experience under their belt. Yes they are still young, but we believe all of them are blazing towards leading NicheLabs to its goals. Specially with the experiences they gained by working on dynamic job roles in the different startups they have worked. So we though to share some of that wisdom from them to the young blood whose still in their early careers.
A Startup in a Nutshell!
A startup in our common vocabulary refers to a unique service or a product that is being brought up by a company from scratch. It could be the product/service or the business model or even strategies that is being brought up from bottom to top.
The major difference between a grown company and an organisation is more or less an organisation has found their ways on doing all of the above, and focuses on the execution part of it. But in a startup the people are doing experiments, building and designing strategies to become a great company. It is full on adventure and journey, as our founders say they are addicted to it. They have been part of Sri Lankan tech-startup culture since, 2015 and proven their selves winning many competitions, both local and global.
1. More Opportunities
This point might be a controversial fact for someone who is always looking for the short-term opportunities or the easy door. Well, let me tell you, working in a startup is way more effort than working in a grown company. In a fully grown company, you are just a part of a huge tree and if you are a fresher, the chances of you being in a “leaf node” of that tree is very high.
But as a fact startups always push you to be working and delivering than your job title. That is not a bad thing in a way as the learning of a startup gained in 6 months can be equal to 1-year experience in a slowly running company, as there are a lesser amount of people, and you will be always in the action.
With that, your experience in dynamic areas is to be tested and improved. As an example, if you are a developer sometimes you need to work with clients or sometimes you act as a project manager managing your colleagues.
“It is up to your employer, to see your potential and give you more opportunities to grow, which will come in real handy in your career later on.”
– Says one of our co-founders who is reaching the top of the software industry in a very short time with his startup working experience.
2. Find yourself early!
In academics we learn the theories but, when we really start to work with clients we tend to understand if we can use what we’ve learned can be applied or not to their problems. Most importantly doing so you end up finding yourself in the software development life cycle the responsibilities you can do, and what you have to do in order to meet that client’s need. You can find yourself on how to approach these, how to try things out with the team, how to build and deliver from the customers’ shoe, which is a rare opportunity to get working in huge legacy software products in big organizations.
On the way to find yourself, you find how you can manage time, delivery pressure, and the professionalism to represent your startup and be part of its growth. These will be the achievements that build a great leader later on in the industry. In much simpler terms you will be able to pick a job to which you are completely unqualified to do, still, you will be able to work on that and prove yourself through it.
3. Be part of the culture
Being honest, working in a startup can be a stress for some people with their lack of self-management. Startup culture can be very relaxing and free for you if you are willing to grow and adapt. In startups, the working times, office environments, casual outings, meetings, and most importantly the culture around it is supportive to the needs of the teams, unlike the policy-based bigger companies.
Even in the shorter run, startups can be flexible with your requests if you are sticking to your responsibilities and delivering them on a high note.
Wrapping Up
So to summarise things, this article was written on a perspective where our teams have picked on their skills and qualities over their academia. Someone could argue the above facts have downsides too. But this is just us and our experience sharing and educating the next generation of software professionals.
Cheers 🤘🏽
