By Poornima Vijayashanker Nearly four and a half years ago I decided to transition from being a founding engineer at my first startup Mint.com …
By Poornima Vijayashanker
Nearly four and a half years ago I decided to transition from being a founding engineer at my first startup Mint.com to being a founder. This was by no means an easy decision, and I’m sure a number of you are in the process of making it right now.
One of the biggest fears that I had at the time was that I wouldn’t be ready. Though people had reassured me of being ready, I rationalized my unpreparedness by coming up with a list of things that I didn’t know how to do, here is my list:
How to raise money from investors
How to do sales
How to do marketing
How to form partnerships with other companies
How to fire people
How to generate revenue
I kept reiterating this list in my head, until I realized that it was just holding me back! Being ready was never going to happen.. In fact, I compared it to the list of things I didn’t know coming into Mint.com that I ended up learning within the first couples years:
How to prototype a product, launch it, and scale it
How to integrate design into product
How to recruit technical talent
How to manage a technical team
How to work on a cross-function team (customer support, sales, and marketing)
How to reach out to customers and re-engage them
How to build a brand
How to build a secure web application
How to build a product for multiple platforms
How to keep product metrics and analytics
This list was nearly twice as long, and that’s when it hit me… It wasn’t about being ready, it was about being resourceful! And that is something I’ve always had to do.
But there was still one question lingering in my mind, and it’s probably one that you’re asking yourself too, “Is now the right time?”
I once again thought back to my moments at Mint.com. When I joined it felt like it was the right time, because I was 2 years out of college, and had a lot of freedom. But as I was going through it, there were certainly some trying moments that made it felt like it just wasn’t the right time to be in a startup, and that perhaps I should just quit!
There was the time I got stung by a stingray in North Carolina while taking a break from recruiting! I had to be rushed to the ER, and it took nearly a week for the swelling in my foot to heal.
Then there was the time that my dad had to have bypass surgery. My younger brother was still in college, so I had to be there for him, and my mom was worried, so I fly up to Portland to support her and my dad. It was a very trying time for myself and for my family.
When I was in those moments it felt like it was not the right time to be in a startup. But you know what, I’ve never had as much freedom and flexibility as I did working in my life!
In both this instances my team understood, I took the time off I needed, and once things were back to normal, I got back to building!
The key was hitting the pause button and then getting back into building.
So if you’re still on the fence about starting, think about what is holding you back. Is it the feeling that you’re not ready? Or is it the feeling that now is not the right time?
From my own personal experiences I can assure you that you being ready will never happen, they key is to instead be resourceful. And if you feel like now is just not the right time, then you have to ask yourself when will it be the right time? All throughout my startup career (8 years to date), timing has been tough, but I realized that I was still able to push through it, through the support of my team and awesome mentors.
If these are two of the reasons that are holding you back, then I’ll encourage you to consider applying for the Lean Product Development Course.
The deadline to apply for the course is Friday April 18, 2014, and there are only 10 spots left. if you’re ready then please apply here, and snag one of those spots before they are all gone!
