Why Working For a Startup Isn’t So Risky

istock_000005134971xsmall.jpg
Monica O’Brien is a guest writer from Twenty Set, a blog about personal and professional development for millennials.

One of my friends graduated in June 2007 and was headhunted for a startup after posting his resume on CareerBuilder. He was 20 years-old and had a choice: do the startup or take the other, much safer offer at a larger company. He chose the startup and joined a team of nine employees who built robots for large firms - in the CEO’s father’s basement.

What I failed to mention is how I met my friend - we’ve been coworkers for the past four months. The startup company was doing great business by building the top robots in the industry - but went bankrupt five months after my friend started due to lawsuits from the CEO’s old company.

But my friend survived his first affair with a startup, and you can too - because startups aren’t that risky. Here are three reasons why…

Oversleeping? Snap out of it!!

A recent graduate of Harvard University, Lauren currently works full-time as a Marketing Associate in the Consumer Products Division at L’Oreal USA. Having spent 4 years as a Social Anthropology major (no, she didn’t study bones and fossils; it’s the study of people and cultures) and a lifetime as someone with entrepreneurial tendencies (at age 7, Lauren was selling her parents possessions, unbeknownst to them, for $1 a piece out in front of her driveway), Lauren decided it was time to put her knowledge of people, her ability to quickly build a rapport with others and her knack for business to good use.

We’ve all been there…
Maybe you forgot to set your clock. Maybe you set it, but you weren’t paying close enough attention and that wretched little dot was in the PM position. Maybe it actually went off… and in your sleepy stupor, desperate and wincing, all you could think about was clicking it back off.

Being late – particularly, being late AND looking like you’re late because you just woke up – is one of the worst impressions you can make with customers, clients, interviewers, and the like. If you’re armed with some quick tricks of the trade, oversleeping doesn’t necessarily mean you actually have to BE late or look like you just got out of bed…

Taking the following actions will get you out of the door in 15 minutes (or less) and, more importantly, could save you from personal and professional embarrassment.

My son, the business teacher!

Caden Nowak

My son is currently eight months old, he is growing very quickly and he is very healthy little man. But I was sitting here tonight and I thought “Boy, I sure have learned a lot from him!” So, I decided to write down the four business qualities and lessons that he has reinforced in me over the past few months. They are very important lessons and his impression of these qualities are priceless to me.

Sharing them with you is very important to me. And yes that is a picture of my son up top, his name is Caden Andrew Nowak! I hope you enjoy; creating this article meant a lot to me!

1. Forget the bad things!
Have you ever noticed when babies hurt themselves, or get disciplined they are sad for a very short while? But not 2 minutes later they are happy and playing again. They have an uncanny knack for forgetting the bad thing that just happened and moving on to good things.

Us grownups seem to take failure very hard, dwelling on it for days and sometimes longer. Why don’t we just take it as a lesson learned, use the experience as a positive and move on or try and do it better next time?

2. Determination
My son is very determined when he wants something, he will spend hours sometime devising a plan to get where he wants (usually where he shouldn’t!) with a single focus. It rarely matters how long it takes or what’s in his way he will keep going.

Why do we quit when the going gets tough, or stop trying when it gets hard? Hardly anything is worth working for if it isn’t hard to achieve! So when the going gets tough, just think of what a baby would do, and get going!

3. Creativity
There is no imposed limits to babies, they haven’t had societies limits imposed on them yet. They believe and think anything is possible. They live day in and day out creating things and imagining the impossible. Look at home many things people have said were impossible, flight for example.

Maybe a little more creativity could help you in your professional life, I know it could help me in mine. Take those limits off your brain and set it loose for awhile, I think you will be amazed at what you come up with!

4. Loyalty
Babies are loyal to their parents while they are young, they completely believe in their parents as their sole provider and teacher. They look at their parents as hero’s and wouldn’t give them up for anything. They stick by their parents.

Being loyal to your customers, business associates, partners and family is a quality that seems to be disappearing today. Yet I believe it is one of the best traits you can have. I would not work with anyone that wasn’t loyal.