If you're an entrepreneur at heart but you're broke and not where you had planned to be in your startup journey, then you might be considering going back to a nine to five. Don't worry, your Startup mindset and skills are valuable and hugely in demand within the corporate workplace. Especially now.
When I left my full time contract role at HSCB in 2018 it took me four months to work up the courage to change my LinkedIn profile to advertise that I was now the founder of an unknown start-up; my start-up. I was worried about how it would be perceived by potential recruiters and companies whom I might be interested in working for in the future. Even though I had no intention of going back to work for the foreseeable future, I felt like I wouldn’t be taken as seriously if I didn’t have a reputable company at the top of my resume.
As a newbie to the start-up ecosystem, I hadn’t realised how much more valuable an asset I had become, not only to my own company but in the corporate world. It took some reflection to acknowledge the multitude of new skills I had learned, existing skills I had honed and the fact that I had a mindset that could only be learned from being an entrepreneur.
Having worked on both sides of the corporate-start-up fence over ten years (this was not my first time at the start-up rodeo), it became increasingly clear what the skills were that any company would find attractive when hiring for professional or leadership roles.
Corporations recognise that professionals with start-up experience have a different energy and mindset; one of problem solving and collaboration.
If you’re contemplating a start-up-to-corporate move or vice versa and you’re worried about articulating how you can translate or port your skills across to the other side, then read on. I’ve successfully used each of these ideas when pitching my value at job interviews at larger corporations. Here are five skills all every corporation needs.
1. You are incredibly resourceful.
Resourcefulness in an early start-up is paramount if it’s going to survive. Whether it’s with people, money or time, all early-stage start-ups require taking ‘lean’ to the next level. As a founder or co-founder or if you are one of a small team, you’ll have found yourself wearing multiple hats, juggling more than one role and learning new skills as you go because there’s no one else to do that task but you. Don’t overlook how important this is to even the largest corporate. Having worked for 18 years for some large organisations, despite running projects with budgets of over $20 million, there has always been a scarcity of skilled resource in any one of my teams. Whether that’s down to lack of resource availability in the market or some red tape delaying hiring, you often need to get creative in convincing other people to do more than their ‘day job’ and you often have to do it yourself.
How to sell it:
You have experience building the relationships with the right people and you sold the vision and benefits that allowed people to come on board and take on responsibility above and beyond their scope of work. You creatively made things happen with fewer people. Then there’s the budget constraints. In a Corporate, this is a daily consideration that needs to be tightly managed and reported on. In a start-up, the grim reality is that once you’ve got investment, you are suddenly accountable, and you must watch and account for every penny spent. But what’s even more valuable a mindset to embrace, and what almost no-one who works for corporates thinks about is “what can I do today that will make my company money?” Having worked for a start-up, you will have thought about this daily.
How to sell it:
You understand that running a business is not only about saving the company money but also about generating revenue. Give examples about how you proactively did this. I was hired on the spot at Monetise when in my first interview I had researched what client they hadn’t yet approached and had worked out (high level) what revenue they were missing out on by not going after them. Be creative.
Time. It waits for no man. And it certainly can be the death of most start-ups. Momentum and product iteration is everything when you are validating a product and getting it out in the market and tested (repeatedly) in a timely manner. With Corporates leaning into and finally embracing the idea of being agile they understand the need for iterative delivery.
How to sell it:
You know how important it is for them to deliver tangible, bite size results to their customers or clients: 1) to ensure early on that requirements have been understood and interpreted correctly 2) so that it saves both sides time and money by not waiting three months to find out you’ve delivered something nobody wants.
2. You thrive under changing priorities
Let’s face it, unless you’re weird (own it) no one loves last minute, ad-hoc and unplanned change. It can be a total ball ache. But if you’ve founded or worked in a start-up you will appreciate that to be successful you need to operate on the principle of constant change and get very comfortable with adapting to it. You will have needed to iterate your product (probably more than once) to suit your market based on feedback from your customers and early adopters.
You will have learned to expect and even anticipate change. Most corporates aren’t prepared for change. Change makes people uneasy and it carries great risk and often needs to be handled with care. This is why any kind of significant change is taken up as a project or program of work. Whether it’s a Business change, Technology change or Process change, huge amounts of money are thrown at hiring the right leaders and teams to implement that change effectively with as little disruption to the wider organisation as possible.
How to sell it:
You know that whilst change comes with great risk, it also comes with great opportunity. You know how to articulate the benefits of the change to your team and stakeholders to get them onside and behind it. You also understand the sensitivities of change (even as a start-up the product can often be tightly held by the founder as they see it as their ‘baby’) and that you can manage and handle those sensitive relationships where people might be uncomfortable with that change.
3. You’re resilient
Nothing can prepare you for the emotional roller-coaster and constant challenges when you’re in start-up mode. It starts off fun and then very quickly you realise that you are in control of absolutely nothing. One day you’ve got Angels soft-circled and committed to investing, the next they have all lost interest. Or you’re told that your product will be ready in a month and then you get it and it’s buggy, or you’re due to pitch and your demo doesn’t work. Oh, and then you hear about a new competitor that’s doing the exact same things as you. But better. And your intern leaves. All in the same week.
How to sell it:
You’re a tough cookie. Nothing phases you. Well, I wouldn’t go as far as to say that you’re a robot with no emotion but do say that you have learned to anticipate and thrive in a changing environment. You can think quickly on your feet and be creative with coming up with solutions to the problems that suddenly appear.
4. You can anticipate risk
When you are in start-up mode, the lack of control, constant ambiguity and never being able to be comfortable for any amount of time becomes the fuel and motivator that keeps you on your toes, constantly anticipating risk and everything that can go wrong. Any kind of business or technology change in a Corporate comes with large amounts of risk. All these risks need to be anticipated, quantified and the likelihood of them happening – understood. You also need to know how and when to mitigate or accept that risk.
How to sell it:
You understand that things can and will happen outside of yours and your teams’ control. Where there are dependencies on other internal or external resources, systems or customers there will be unforeseen events that might have an impact on what you are delivering. You know how to creatively think ahead as to what these might be (anticipate) and identify ways to minimise the impact of these events (mitigate).
5. Your soft skills are on point
Not really a shocker, but human relationships are complicated. Managing and working alongside other humans is hard.
Over the last 18 years of managing multidisciplinary, geographically dispersed and culturally diverse project teams (CV speak), experience has taught me that there are a broad range of considerations when hiring an effective team for a large Corporate and sometimes even bigger considerations when building a start-up team. After all, a single weak link can affect performance more noticeably, and when you are a start-up, it can often knock you out the game. In addition, team conflicts, personality clashes and not being able to control output, can all lead to substandard output whether you are a small team or a larger workforce.
How to sell it:
If you’ve worked as part of a start-up team, you can talk about how you’ve previously used your high EQ (emotional intelligence) to work with and maintain healthy relationships with challenging individuals. Give examples. If you haven’t experienced that then talk how you’ve learned that sharing knowledge and encouraging mutual support and collaboration within the team is paramount for success. Community is everything.
If you’re managing a team, talk about how you’ve honed your soft skills (again, high EQ is crucial here) whilst working in a start-up team. Give examples of how you’ve had to use these to manage a multidisciplinary team that is geographically dispersed and / or culturally diverse. You are also now super skilled at getting your team to buy into your vision and keeping them motivated through challenging times.
6. You know how important a hyper-connected network is to get things done
If you want to be successful, nothing is more important than your network when you are building a company. You need people on your side, sharing knowledge with you, supporting you, believing in you and your vision and most importantly, opening doors for you by making the right introductions that will help you thrive.
The power of your individual relationships and network is ev-er-y-thing.
Working for or founding a start-up means you will have had to build relationships with people, companies, investors and influencers outside of your existing circle. This is not easy. Don’t underestimate the soft skills you have learned and honed whilst making these connections. Don’t underestimate your understanding of how important it is to maintain these relationships.
It’s no different in the Corporate world. When you are working for a large organisation, relationships are equally as important. Sideways, upwards and downwards. You can’t get shit done without engaging other people and getting the support of your peers, managers and the people who report into you.
How to sell it:
You understand that achieving project success depends on getting people on side and building the right relationships that will give you and your team the support and access to the tools and resources they need to get their jobs done. Your job is to unblock them and build the networks to ensure collective success both within your team and the wider organisation.
Conclusion
You’re awesome. You’ve got what it takes to implement all of the skills and entrepreneurial mindset you’ve acquired during your start-up journey. You’re resilient, can think creatively to find solutions to problems and you know how to get the team bought into a vision and deliver against it. You know that money management is not just about budget tracking but that to be successful it’s important to make money. You know that team work makes the dream work and that community and building and leveraging your network and individual relationships at the right times is key to being successful.
Go get ‘em.
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