I wanted to work at a startup in a very specific way. Small team, high ownership, real responsibility, learning by doing. I recently joined one as part of the founding team, and it is exactly the kind of place I was looking for.
What I did not fully understand before joining was not the idea of startup life, but the texture of it. The way pressure shows up quietly. The way responsibility expands without anyone explicitly asking. The way learning and urgency arrive bundled together, making it hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.
This is not a regret post. I am learning things here that I would not learn in a slower, more protected environment. How systems actually break. How decisions propagate. How ownership feels when there is no buffer. I know this kind of exposure pays off over time.
At the same time, value does not automatically mean sustainability.
That is the question I am sitting with right now. Not whether I should be here, but how people who have been here before learned to last. What they learned to protect early. How they told the difference between growth and erosion. What boundaries mattered even when everything felt urgent. What quietly paid off, and what did not.
For now, I am trying to stay attentive rather than reactive. Noticing when learning feels energizing versus draining. When urgency is real versus inherited. When I am acting out of intention versus momentum. I am still showing up fully and leaning in, but I want to do it without burning parts of myself that take longer to rebuild.
I wanted startup life, and I got it. Now I am trying to learn how people hold up here, not just how they start.
If you have been in a similar place before, I would genuinely appreciate hearing what you would tell your younger self at this stage.
Top comments (2)
You got the new job you wanted. Congratulations! Good news to start a good new year. I hope you do well in your new job.👍
Thanks! Still trying to get used to this environment... Any advice on how do I keep my spirits up in low pay + workload situation?