10 Tips to Ensure Your Success Working in a Startup Culture by Hikari Matsuo

I contribute regularly to an ongoing InfoSpace series called, “Startup Roundup.” Each article contains a full look at mostly-local startups, providing details about the founders, the company, and everything in between.

My interest in the startup culture stemmed from exposure to entrepreneurship during my freshman year at Syracuse University in the Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Learning Community. Ever since then, I have been involved in a number of startups on campus. Regardless of the level of success of the company, each opportunity provided new connections, skills, and pathways for new ideas. Yet, this does not mean that the journey was easy or painless. Throughout the journey, I learned these simple, 10 tricks to continue what I call, “the Startup Life.”

1. Be Passionate
This is a “no-brainer”–but it’s essential for startup interns and employees! Without a doubt, you will spend countless hours working without much compensation. If you are going to put overtime hours in a startup, do yourself a favor and make sure you’re passionate for the company and its goals. People often say, “If you love what you do, it’s not work.” In the end, the success of your startup will be more satisfying knowing how much blood, sweat, and (real) tears you put into it.

2. Sleep Well, Eat Better
We all understand that students do not have much time to sleep or eat well. But if you want to be able to work long days at your startup, your body has to prepared for it. If you can run off of just four hours of sleep, great! Then again, it also doesn’t hurt to get at least seven hours of sleep a day. For me, I need to get at least seven to eight hours every night, a nighttime ritual I’ve been practicing for a year now. Needless to say, I feel refreshed in the morning for another crazy day.

Additionally, if you’re working in a startup or starting to launch your own company, you will have long days (and nights) of working. As a result, you might not have time to sit down and eat a well-balanced meal. But don’t make that an excuse to eat pizza at 3AM. I have a corny (but true) computing reference that I like to apply to my lifestyle: “Bad input will always lead to bad output.” If you want to be able to work better and longer, it’s simple, get your sleep and eat well! If you’re feeling bogged down and stressed from working too hard, check out these helpful tips for a technology detox!

3. Be Charged!

We’re in an age of expensive, portable gadgets that supposedly make our life easier with instant communication. But that all goes to waste unless those devices are charged. If you’re like me, someone who works while waiting in line for a coffee or while eating lunch, I often find my phone below 50% before noon (pathetic, I know). Especially if you have an older phone, your battery life is next to nothing. Imagine you’re on an important business call when your iPhone decides to die–and now what? Either bring your charger everywhere with you or invest in an external battery – like these on Amazon.com!

4. Be Prepared
I have three basic and easy tricks to get myself prepared for each day.

1. This may seem elementary, but I pack my bag for the next day every night before I go to bed. This way, there is no way I can forget anything important for the following day. You waste valuable time and energy if you have to go back to your house to grab something!
2. Do your homework! Nothing is more embarrassing than going to a business meeting unprepared. Even just 10 minutes of researching can be the deal breaker when you risk losing potential clients or even your credibility.
3. Make a list! I get it, not everybody likes list making–but what else are receipts for? I’m constantly writing things down to do as they pop up to ensure I get them done. Besides, there’s nothing more satisfying than checking something completed off a list!

5. Get Paid!
Sure you’re passionate about your startup, but if you don’t have the financial resources to work, you won’t be able to continue what you do best. Make sure that you get at least some compensation for your hard work so that you can continue doing so. If you’re a founder of a startup, consider paying yourself as well! If you’re confused on how much you should be paying yourself, OnStartups gives us a debriefing.

6. Set Hours for Yourself
A new business idea can pop at any moment of the day, but that doesn’t mean that you should work 24/7. Try your best to make a schedule for yourself to keep your priorities straight for school, work, or anything else that may be important in your life. Allotting time to work on your startup can also make you more efficient and help you get more done.

7. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate!
In my opinion, this is the #1 rule for startups, especially if the team is working from remote locations! This includes being able to respond to emails promptly and answering phone calls without hesitation. These little changes in any given lifestyle may be annoying, but it makes all the difference for your colleagues knowing that you are reliable. In my experiences, I have found that Slack is a great communication tool for small- to medium-sized teams!

8. Do Your Job, and Do It Well
This may sound self-explanatory, but not many people abide by this principle. Startups are counting on you to bring your “A” game so that you can improve the company tenfold. One missed deadline can be detrimental for the company’s valuable resources and time. On the contrary, there is also plenty of room for mistakes as that’s how most startups learn their best tricks and become more resilient. In the end, the best thing you can do for yourself and your company is to work hard and well.

9. Be Confident …

As the only woman in the tech startup I work for, I have learned a thing about being confident in my identity. Instead of dwelling in gender stereotypes, I took the opportunity to prove what a woman is capable of! While some may not understand in the importance of gender representation, others can agree that it can take a toll in the workplace.

10. … and Willing to Learn
It’s time to kick egos to the curb and take every opportunity to learn. This is an environment where each individual brings something important to a team. As teammates, it is your job to support their positions and learn from them, regardless of age or gender! These experiences mold you to become a “jack of all trades”, a very attractive role in startup culture.

Do you work in a startup? What are other tricks that works for you? Leave your comments below!