8 Lessons from spending my waking life at a Series-B startup in Bangalore!
On a train journey in mid-August 2018, somewhere in the middle of Gobi desert in China, I started receiving slack messages from my colleagues, congratulating me for completing 2 years at Belong.co.
While that trip was meant to shut-off from work; for the next few hours, I couldn’t stop pondering about how spending most of my waking hours after graduating from college at Belong’s office, has shaped so much of my identity and my way of thinking.
So I sat down reflecting on these 2 years that went by, to write about some of these moments that changed the way I look at work, startups and recruitments forever.
Each paragraph below is a story that stands on its own, and ends with a lesson. I’ve written them with the hope that they’ll be shared with others, or adopted in ways, that can help you in your own journey of Belongingness :
- Aug 2016 :- My beginning at Belong — Small successes lead to bigger wins:
I was just one year out of college when I joined Belong. The first week was so overwhelming that I felt I knew nothing.
But then I shipped my first item within 13 days of joining, and it took me weeks to realise that, my team had planned this set-up of giving me an “early success”, to transform me from I-Feel-I-Know-Nothing to someone who was hungry for more success. That small win, was a start to many bigger things ahead.
Lesson 1 : Do something that gives you a small win. It’ll build the momentum and confidence to take on bigger challenges. - Oct 2016 : First Diwali at Belong — Happiness is found in celebrating contributions of those working behind the scenes :
Two months in Belong , I asked a help-staff what he felt about working here, and he said, “Yahan kaam karna bahut Achha Lagta Hai”.
These in-house chefs and help-staff remember preferences of a hundred people for tea/coffee, and while we have flexible work hours and work-from-home policies, sadly these “enablers” are the ones that don’t — Because the entire office would come to a standstill without them.
And that’s why we spend our Diwali evening recognising the efforts of these “enablers” and thank them for making our lives simpler everyday.
Lesson 2 : If you want to know how good a workplace culture is, then ask the janitor.
3. May’17 — Data is one of the most powerful mechanisms to tell stories.
We’re sitting on millions of data-points, data so valuable that it’d be a goldmine to anyone else around in the industry. But sadly, people in our own company weren’t using it at all, and that had to be changed.
To drive a trend, we started using some of this data to create stories for category creation and thought leadership — Something which companies in India didn’t really do, and we had to look up to US based companies like OkCupid and MatterMark for inspiration. These data-driven stories broke so many myths/stereotypes around hiring, and got featured in the Indian media too.
Lesson 3: Take a huge pile of data, and get it to tell all stories — Stories so powerful that can make people aware of another reality.
4. Lesson 4:- On competition — “ First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win”
As the company continued to grow, we attracted a lot of eyeballs; a lot from competition too — This is how our CEO Vijay responded to a competitor bad-mouthing us.
And that was probably the last time, that I bitched about any competition too.
5. To Survive Chaos, Embarrassments and Cluelessness — Keep your ego aside, be vulnerable and ask for help.
In Oct 2017, I moved into product management, and as a first timer in this domain, I was completely thrown out of my comfort zone.
Nearly every day was filled with moments of embarrassments and cluelessness and my best learning during these times was :
Lesson 5 : Drop a message to people with one simple sentence : “Just wanted to learn from you”; and see how it’ll get them to easily open up to you and share their experiences.
6. Jan 2018 :- Entering the new year!
Early this year, my parents were touched to receive the letter below :
I remember a conversation that one of Belong’s founders had with my mom, where he said :
Lesson 6: “everyone@belong.co” (the company-wide email group) isn’t just your team that works at office everyday, it’s also their parents who’ve made a lot of sacrifices along the way, to make this journey at Belong happen.
Lesson 7: Make unlimited first time mistakes.
Few weeks into Product team, I made so many embarrassing mistakes every week, that I started collating it in a google doc called the “Mistakes Document”, so that someday I can read it again and laugh at it all.
One such day, I was so embarrassed after messing up, that I emailed my boss hoping to learn from him, and mostly just to feel better; here’s a snapshot of my email thread with him:
Belong has a value called “Make unlimited first time mistakes” — And I continue to use/abuse it regularly.
But most of the days at work weren’t all that rosy; and like any other startup, even we’ve been through our share of ups & downs, and struggles.
But struggle doesn’t matter when everyone around you is in the game for the long term. And I’m glad that I left the comforts of home in Dubai, and left a potential 3-4X tax-free salary in UAE currency, and moved to Bangalore instead, to enter this roller-coaster phase of life with a bunch of young and ambitious folks — Because great things happen, only when we bring together the right people for the right reasons at the right time — Something that’s beautifully crafted in a message by our marketing team :
Recently, I was talking to a friend, who’s figuring out his next career move, and while helping him narrow down his options to decide on a few companies, I had one question for him - “Where do you think you’ll truly Belong?”
