Eight Months at a Startup Taught Me Even More Than Two Years in an MBA
In a startup, every day counts. We have to ensure we learn as fast as possible. Otherwise, success is unachievable.
In a startup, every day counts. We have to ensure we learn as fast as possible. Otherwise, success is unachievable.
In 2016 I found myself locked in a trap. I was 28; I had a stable job with a good income. Yet, I felt something was missing. Day in, day out, the same things happened. My motivation was disappearing because I was living in a loop. I needed a radical change.
I decided to move out of the comfort zone. I changed my job from a large company of fifty thousand employees to a six-month-old startup of fifty employees. I had no idea what was awaiting me.
My first startup journey was short in time, yet what I learned there changed my life forever. Back then, I was doing an MBA in parallel to my job. What I learned from the MBA I could apply the next day at the startup. But what I experienced with the intense startup life was a game-changer for my future.
“I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying.” — Jeff Bezos
Let me share with you why my first startup experience taught me even more than the MBA.
The MBA vs. the Startup Experience
For six years, I worked as a Developer; then, I moved to Product Management. Coming from a technical background was helpful in some aspects, but something was still missing. I had little business knowledge. That’s why succeeding as a Product Owner would be daunting until I acquired proper business knowledge.
In the beginning of 2016, I enrolled for an MBA focused on Strategic Business Management. The learnings from the experienced professionals were terrific. I thought I was learning at a fast pace until I joined the Startup. Let me share some comparisons with you:
Business Model: in the MBA, I studied different business models for three months. In the startup, I tried five new business models in three months. I learned by doing what worked and what didn’t.
Growth-rate: in the MBA, I learned the importance of growing a business sustainably and the different ways of doing it. In the startup, I experimented every single week with new growth techniques.
Prototype: to conclude the MBA, I had to prepare a prototype for a business idea; I had six months to do it. In the startup, I tested at least five different business ideas per month. The startup lacked the luxury of a long time; every day, we had to validate our assumptions.
Success vs. Failure: why do companies succeed? I spend much time studying successful companies in the MBA. It was essential to understand what leads companies to success. But in the startup, we often faced failure. We understood that success is reached after many failures. We always learned from our failures.
Long story short, the MBA was a fantastic experience. But nothing is comparable to a real experience. For me, eight months in a startup looked like doing an MBA every second month. My advice is:
If you want to know how business really works, join a startup. Nothing teaches more than real failures.
Now, let me walk you through some of the lessons I learned from the startup. Hopefully, you can apply the insights to your reality.
Keep It as Simple as Possible
In startups, only one thing matters: finding a sustainable business. Every day the clock is ticking; startups have a limited amount of time to transform an idea into a business. That’s why we have to keep everything as simple as possible.
Before the startup experience, I worked with tons of processes. Everything was predefined how it should work. In the startup, we had almost no processes. We only cared about changing the status quo; we didn’t have time to establish robust processes. Yet, our achievements were terrific. What we achieved in eight months would be unimaginable in the corporate environment I was in before.
“Waiting for perfect is never as smart as making progress.” — Seth Godin
The work at a startup might be stressful, but we significantly progress daily. In my opinion, the lean approach to everything is what allows fast pace progress.
In general, startups empower people to make decisions. If you make a bad decision, it’s okay because it generates some learning. But if you avoid making a decision, it’s bad because you remain stuck. Simplicity is the secret.
The Faster You Fail, the Faster You Succeed
In 2016, during the evening, I studied multiple business models in the MBA. It was good to learn the theory, yet the practice was only imaginary. But during the day, I had the chance to explore different business models at the startup.
Every day we would try something new; some worked well, most of them failed. Our goal was to understand what would work and what wouldn’t. The only way to do that was by testing ideas as fast as possible.
“You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing and falling over.” — Richard Branson
It was rare the day we wouldn’t face any failure. Yet, we celebrated our failures. We built prototypes to validate our assumptions with our customers. When we discovered some of our assumptions were incorrect, we were happy because we avoided making a product nobody wanted.
The startup experience taught me something vital: only the customers know what they want. As Product Owners, we may assume the customers need something. Still, we cannot build a real product until we validate our assumptions with real customers.
Unhappy Customers Are Extremely Valuable
In my opinion, companies exist for a single reason: to make the lives of some people better. Yet, it’s impossible to please everyone. Some people will be delighted, while some will be completely frustrated. The question is, how should companies ensure they have way more satisfied customers than unsatisfied ones?
“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” — Bill Gates
During the MBA, I learned the Net Promoter Score and its importance. NPS suggests that delighted customers will bring more customers. In contrast, frustrated customers will convince their contacts not to use the product or service. For every detractor, the business needs ten promoters to keep sustainable growth.
The biggest challenge for startups is to prove that the business is sustainable and scalable. In the beginning, we tried to scale by doing more of what made our customers delighted. Surprisingly our numbers were not growing at all. We tried to move somethings from good to great, yet what frustrated clients remained unchanged. We needed a different approach.
We accepted we wouldn’t have a perfect experience. We shifted our mindset to embrace a good enough approach. Therefore, we searched what was not good enough; we assumed the frustrated customers could help us.
“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”
— Winston Churchill
Whenever we received critical feedback, I would contact the customer to identify the reason behind it. Many times a quick conversation of less than ten minutes would reveal multiple flaws in our customer journey. By knowing what frustrated our customers, we could build a good enough customer journey. Ultimately, our business grew at a sustainable pace.
Whenever we received critical feedback, I would contact the customer to identify the reason behind it. Many times a quick conversation of less than ten minutes would reveal multiple flaws in our customer journey. By knowing what frustrated our customers, we could build a good enough customer journey. Ultimately, our business grew at a sustainable pace.
Don’t Search for Excuses, Search for Solutions
My first startup experience gave me the most intense eight months of my life. Some weeks I worked more than a hundred hours. MANY days were stressful. But I am thrilled I had this experience in parallel to my MBA.
The learnings from the startup shaped my mind forever. The main lessons I have are:
Before we can succeed, we will fail multiple times.
Everything is a matter of perception. Adversities can be opportunities if we have an open mind.
Don’t aim for perfection. Aim for good enough. Progress generates learnings.
We don’t know what customers want until we validate our assumptions.
Not making a decision is worse than making a wrong decision. No decision generates no learning, while a wrong decision produces knowledge.
“I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.” –Steve Jobs