Five months ago, I left a large company to go work for a small company and haven\u2019t regretted it a day since.<\/p>\n
I should clarify that this is not meant to be a broad strokes indictment of large companies or to say that I\u2019ll never work for one again. Working for an established company definitely has its perks relative to working at a startup\u2014namely security, structure, and stability. In most cases, you can bet on the former existing 1 year from now, whereas the latter is not guaranteed.<\/p>\n
This is meant to share my experience of personal growth at a smaller company that otherwise would not have happened had I not taken that leap five months ago.<\/p>\n
Something I\u2019m certain I share with others my age is not being quite sure yet of what I want to do when I grow up. Conventional wisdom has it that to find the answer, you should take some time off, maybe travel and ultimately figure out where you should dedicate yourself. I\u2019m not one to argue that wisdom, but I also believe that there is a lot of discovery to be had while actually working, specifically for a smaller company.<\/p>\n
Since I\u2019ve been at WeWork Labs, there hasn\u2019t been one day similar to the last. Each day comes with new challenges and responsibilities, many that I\u2019m handling for the first time. The benefit of this has been accelerated personal growth. I\u2019ve learned what I handle well and what I don\u2019t handle well, and because of how agile the pace is, I\u2019ve been forced to improve quickly on those weaknesses.<\/p>\n
While security, structure, and stability are great, I reached the point at my last job where I felt that everything I was doing was circular. My tasks felt trivial and seemingly had little impact on the success or failure of the business in the grand scheme of things.<\/p>\n
In comparison, working for a smaller company feels more linear. Your contributions are either moving the team forward or moving the team backward. Because time can be the biggest currency, the stakes are higher and success is augmented just as much as failure is amplified.<\/p>\n
Exposure is crucial to figuring out what you want to do. In the past five months, I\u2019ve been fortunate enough to meet hundreds of entrepreneurs working in various verticals in every capacity and been asked to do things I\u2019ve never done before. That exposure has not only helped me determine what I want to do, but also helps me determine what I don\u2019t want to do. Both are equally valuable and in my experience would have been much harder to discover while working for a large company.<\/p>\n
I recognize that not all experiences with small companies are perfect. There are a lot of inherent risks and the opportunity has to be aligned with your own goals \u2014 whether it does or doesn\u2019t work out. For me, I wanted to learn something about myself at a young age and recommend to anyone in a similar situation at a larger company to consider making the leap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Five months ago, I left a large company to go work for a small company and haven\u2019t regretted it a day since. I should clarify that this is not meant to be a broad strokes indictment of large companies or to say that I\u2019ll never work for one again. Working for an established company definitely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":884,"featured_media":33883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43902],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-professional-development"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n