The first rule is… you do not talk about Start-ups. The second rule is… you. Do not. Talk. About. Start-ups.
Kidding. You talk about start-ups. And you talk about start-ups a lot.
I had an opportunity to intern at a company called Luvix. It is an innovation and digital strategy company based in Utrecht, which prides itself on having a spirit of a start-up. During my 6 months internship in the Growth & Marketing team, I was working on their project – Software as A Service venture aimed at innovating how business is done.
Coming from a neatly structured and crystal clear study programme, it took me a considerable amount of time to learn how to thrive in a fast-paced, dynamic and structureless environment. There were very few rules to start with, but I generated advice from my supervisor and colleagues into a list to work by.
If you ever find yourself in a similar situation, here are the 4 rules that helped me:
- Fail fast and fail hard
Any decision is better than no decision. There are only that many ways you can absolutely demolish and ruin everything – and the chances are high that the decision you are about to make is not going to have that big of an impact. So make it. Don’t get stuck in the freeze zone, as the more times you fail, the more times you learn. Quite often, making a mistake and fixing it takes less time than contemplating one minor decision for hours. - 20% rule
80% of the output comes from 20% of the input. You can always come back to make something perfect when your to-do list gets too short. I understood, that something can only be perfected after going through and understanding the whole process, generating an overview, and testing. So don’t waste your time – get ahead, produce most of the output with 20% of the work, and come back to it when you are sure on how to improve it. - Google it
Don’t try to re-invent the wheel. Starting in a new field, I was convinced that there is surely a way to do things differently. But that’s exactly the point where the most straightforward way to improve is to rely on existing knowledge. There are so many clever people in the world who figured out and done so many things already. They are willing to share how they got there. Use that. And once you have learned all the classic tricks in the book – that’s when the true innovation and rule-breaking begins. - Work when you want to
Everyone has rough days and occasional afternoon dips. Instead of fueling through unproductive hours with pure willpower, I learned that taking a break and coming back with the right mindset is much more efficient and enjoyable. Just because someone gets their best work done between 9 and 5, doesn’t mean that you can’t be productive outside of that.
Overall, it was an amazing learning experience.
I hope you will be able to make/already made the most out of your internship too!