Benefits of Starting Your Career in a Startup!

Insights Gained from My Experience in a B2B Startup

Unfortunately, a significant portion of the employable population I have personally encountered possesses excellent skill sets but harbors the following mindset:

1. ‘Will I get more profit if I work more on this project?’
2. ‘Just assign tasks to me; I don’t need to understand what customers think or the market situation.’

Additionally, they calculate effort solely based on time, neglecting the mental and cognitive effort they invest.

Talent and skillset are not significant problems here (at least in India in My POV); finding individuals with the right mindset and attitude poses the real challenge.

Fortunately, as a User Experience Researcher, understanding the customer is my primary goal. As a freelance UX Researcher, I had the opportunity to understand different customer segments. However, I truly lacked business understanding in many ways.

Working in a B2B Startup taught me the ground reality of business. Before joining a startup, as a passionate researcher, I was more inclined towards:

-Ideal long-term goals
- Text Book Theories & Framework
- Thinking that sales & marketing are not important
- Working in silos & having a relay-race mindset
- Finding B2C more exciting

But After I Joined B2B Startup, I learned

• Survival is the most important aspect of business; ideal long-term goals cannot be achieved without surpassing immediate short-term goals.

• The ability to provide maximum outcomes with limited resources in uncertain situations matters a lot more than sticking to theories & frameworks.
• B2B sales plays an important role in finding potential customers in the product adoption curve, building trust, and sharing goals with them. This cannot be accomplished without greater clarity, conviction, and compassion from the sales team.

• Having the mindset to accept the best ideas & approaches from anyone in the team that benefit the business is more important than pushing our specialized genius & personal egos.
• I had the chance to collaborate with the design team, sales team, product managers, and engineering team at different levels. This endorsed my co-creation mindset.

• Unfortunately, while everyone thinks B2C is cool, the opportunities in the B2B market are genuinely exciting and challenging. This is because, in B2C, most things boil down to consumerism and are often driven by fear, ego, greed, and vanity. whereas in B2B, we can contribute to the development of certain ecosystems.

If someone wants to develop an Entrepreneurial Mindset or Successful Career, I suggest they should work in a Startup.

Hope you find this helpful. Please feel free to share your thoughts & feedback in the comment section.

Feel Free to connect with me on Linkedin! https://www.linkedin.com/in/isanthoshgandhi