Career Strategy

Hypergrowth Startup Strategy

• reliability is paramount.

  • be the person everyone wants to ask to fix something
  • never drop the ball.

• think in problems & skills, not roles. Everyone switches role.

  • You are hired to fix problems, not point them out. Most problems are not hard but there are a lot of them.
  • A half-fixed problem is worse than no fix at all. You can't resue or build on a 20% solution.

• Everyone's job is to fix/create/setup/improve.

  • all roles are interim. Hire better people to replace you.

• avoid stress by maintaining control.

• Things going wrong is normal. Have risk mitigation strategies.

• Don't work a lot, work quickly and effectively.

  • Don't wait, don't get stuck. switch between issues if you get stuck.
  • If you are waiting on someone else, see if you can do a good enough version yourself.
  • Acknowledge quickly, solve async.

• Scale yourself by automating, hiring, empowering

• never load your stress or frustration on others.

  • if you share a problem share a default solution to avoid 'passing the burden.'

Career Advancement Strategy

• Get ahead by working hard for yourself (keeping an indie mindset), such as:
  • building and maintaining a network
  • getting certifications
  • freelancing and consulting
  • creating your own products
• exhibit loyalty to people, not organizations
• have a clear definition of what success means to you.
• find positions of higher leverage, get yourself in better bargaining positions.
• Don't worry about "advanced" tech title bumps like "lead" or "architect."
• If possible, spend less time with programmers and more with project managers, etc. #above the code
• volunteer to do non-programming work like:
  • audit processes
  • research projects
  • learn about a domain, bring others up to speed on it.
• survival is about strength at your own level, confidence is about the illusion of strength above your level. #playing up
  • Always accept more responsibility, authority, and organizational power. Bite off more than you can chew.
  • Every transfer, promotion, or company switch is a plausible point for narrative enhancement. #narrative rationality
• look for mutual wins.
• avoid "carnival cash" compensation. (anything that has value within a company but does not have value outside of it.)
• learn how to say no

Further Reading

• Joining Hypergrowth Startups