Mindset Shift: Working in an Early Stage Startup Versus Big Company

When I joined Google from Rocket Internet, I had underestimated the change in mindset and environment. For my first project, I couldn’t secure design help. Still in my “startup” mindset, I decided to do the design myself, only for the designers to find out, during the product review meeting. This anecdote underscores the need to alter how one should approach working with stakeholders, problem-solving, decision making, and more.

In this post, I’ll share my own perspective on the mindset shift required when moving from a large company to an early-stage startup. Whether you’re the founder or team members of that small startup, being hyper aware of these changes will alleviate a lot of pain and help you focus on the important: building, learning and selling.

1- Length of feedback cycle

In a startup, the speed at which you give and receive feedback is crucial to your ability to improve. Delaying feedback to your engineering or design team will impact your ability to receive feedback from users. And delaying listening to users will influence your ability to learn and achieve product-market fit (PMF). Take advantage of the lack of multiple layers of approvals and processes, which naturally shortens feedback cycles.

→ This mindset shift will help you appreciate the opportunity to rapidly iterate, distinguish between "perfect" and "good enough," and pivot based on user feedback.

2- Interpretation of user signals

In a startup, you’ll encounter various types of feedback from potential investors, users, non-interested users, paying users, and more. This feedback can be raw, relevant, irrelevant, positive, negative, and often conflicting. Treating all feedback as equally important can lead to burnout, dilute your focus, and blur your strategic plans.

→ This mindset shift will help you recognize that not all feedback is equal, allowing you to identify the signals most important to your goals and reprioritize accordingly.

3- Urgency to ship impacts the speed and quantity of learnings

In a startup, the level of urgency must be significantly different from that in a large company. Keeping a focused urgency on priorities allows you to ship faster. Only by doing so, will you be able to obtain high signal and relevant feedback from users. Many startups abandon after barely testing a few assumptions, often because they are unable to ship fast enough.

→ This mindset shift will help you adopt a “ship fast, learn fast” mentality, making you more comfortable with exposing imperfections to users in exchange for valuable feedback.

4- Proactiveness in setting and maintaining standards

In a startup, you’re joining a structure that lacks structure and established standards. It will take you a very high level of energy and stamina to define the necessary standards to operate competitively, and even more to maintain these standards when everything feels difficult.

→ This mindset shift will allow you to recognise that no established rules exist and that failing to maintain the required standards will negatively impact all aspects of your startup, including its ability to reach PMF.

5- Speed of decision making

In a startup, you will constantly face the need to make decisions - whether with investors, mentors, engineers, or product teams. Many newcomers may fall into decision paralysis or rely on others to make decisions for them. This very often reflects the lack of ownership and the inability in transitioning from a large company, where decisions are slow, involve many stakeholders, and prioritize minimizing risk.

→ This mindset shift will help you become comfortable with making decisions based on incomplete data and realize that slow or no decisions can cost valuable time, money, and opportunities.

6- Less work needed on internal stakeholders, much more focus on users

In a startup, you should spend minimal time preparing materials to influence stakeholders. This is precious time that should be spent with users. Coming from a large company, you may find comfort in working with stakeholders, but this can quickly become an “excuse” for not engaging with users.

→ This mindset shift will help you reallocate your bandwidth and priorities from “stakeholder management” to “user focus”. While alignment is important, it should be achieved in a non-bureaucratic way, allowing you to focus as many resources as possible on delivering value to users.

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Moving from large companies to early stage startups is not only a change in environment, but fundamentally a shift in mindset. With resources and budgets often constrained, this shift in mindset will enable you to operate effectively and deliver value within these constraints.

I encourage each of you to reflect on how the points discussed above apply to your situation and consider how completing these mindset shifts can help you find PMF and deliver value!