From Corporate Life To Startup Life
This summer, I went from private equity corporate soldier in NYC to co-founder of an intimate apparel brand in Malaysia. While not an easy transition, I am so glad I made the leap with my better half by my side.
These are some of the lessons from my journey to date.
Working with a partner is challenging and really tests your patience
Having a co-founder is awesome - you bounce ideas off each other and complement each other’s skillsets. When Chris and I describe our dynamic as co-founders, we say he’s the “structure” while I’m the “passion.” At the same time, having two Type A founders can lead to built up frustrations and no shortage of arguments, especially when we’ve never worked together before. It is no surprise that one of the leading causes of startups failing is founder conflict. The key for us (as we learned after having a rough first month) is to express our needs sooner rather than later and to be patient as the other works at it. For example, I’m learning to not take criticism personally and to give him processing time, and he’s learning to vocalize his thoughts earlier and to be more collaborative. At the end of the day, we believe our collective output is better and so is worth the co-founder trials and tribulations.
Take your average monthly networking pace and multiply that by 5x
Having been in sales and private equity before, I am no stranger to networking. I used to have coffee chats/calls at least twice or thrice a month to grow and maintain my personal network. As critical as my network was to my growth in the corporate world, it’s even more important in the startup setting. In these last few months, I’ve met and spoken with over 40, what I call, subject matter experts. Offer up brief intro calls, pay for coffee chats, attend conferences/workshops/events, slide into DMs and simply introduce yourself. Use each opportunity to make genuine connections and make sure you do research on the person beforehand to make the most out of your discussion even though it’s informal. I always offer some way to help that person at the end of our conversion - remember it’s always a two-way street.
Everyone and their mother has an opinion - you should hear them out and be a good listener, but don’t feel like you have to implement everything they say
People love giving their two cents, both welcome and unwelcome, when it comes to new ideas at the early stage. Every time I would introduce our brand, I not only viewed it as an opportunity to test if certain words/phrases of the brand story were more appealing, but more importantly to hear how people respond. I typically hear, “That’s great - have you thought of _?”, “what about doing _?”, or “you should do _.” Some are great ideas and some are just plain bad (for example, I once received a suggestion to cater our website entirely to men who buy lingerie for their partners). I did not feel the need to be combative or defensive but rather let the ideas flow and filter as necessary afterward. After all, you have every right to disagree and not follow through on certain suggestions. Just don't forget that good ideas can turn into great ideas from healthy debate and discussion, too. Another way to filter ideas at an early stage is to hire a brand strategist. It’s an often overlooked investment that can really help with going from fluff to concrete by going through tried-and-tested frameworks with an expert.
To see how Natasha’s journey unfolds, follow her on Instagram @brapreneur
