Introduction

I was (and from bottom of heart, still I am) a startup man. I liked to work in nights. I didn’t mind late sitting. I kept dream to success overnight. After a hectic and successful journey of 6 years, I have joined well-structed, well-organized hierarchical company.

Start-up had changed many thinks in me. My psychology, my way of thinking, my paradigm even my living style. I am trying my best to survive in large-scale company. Not technically but culturally and politically.

drawing

As I observed some difference between entrepreneur and giant company:

1. Culture.

I heard from CEO of a famous multi-national company “That is culture who makes you sustainable and unbreakable”. Most of large-scale companies follow a culture for sustainability and value or we can say that they are giant because they follow some culture.

On the contrary, mostly start-up follows one culture “We are free”. Boundaries reduces creativity (I don’t agree with common saying myth) and culture following is like wasting time in jail. So mostly start-ups do not follow any specific set of commands. They even don’t take job timings seriously.

2. Team.

Both type of companies has teams. Start-up have friendly team and organization have horizontal or vertical team. Mostly start-ups believe in work not on planning. In spare time, they like to fun rather than play politics.

Team is backbone of any company. Mostly start-ups are launched by group of friends, so they have strong binding on other level even they compromise business over friendship. While in giant organization, team is defined by sure structure like manager, lead, senior officer. They never compromise business over team.

3.Work Structure.

Start-up focuses on work. Organization works on planning. Start-ups work faster than any. I spent almost 8 hours of coding in start-up office and now, I just code almost 4 hours and remaining times on sprint planning, sprint management, task assigning, maintain progress. Planning reduces work speed but gives you focus, risk calculation and path. I realized the important of stand-up meeting now.

4.Politics.

Things I hate in organization are inner politics and blame game. Large organization have many informal groups. Group can be made on age, sect, language and interest base. Sometimes group have intragroup cold war and sometimes people have cold war.

On the other hand, start-up have only 1 or 2 group. It’s hard to play blame game in start-ups Group’s cold war chances are very less.

5.Decision taking.

Speed of taking decision is totally different in startups and large organization. Organization have structured and follow some procedure. Procedure can be multi-level, time taking and unnecessary. I suggested some design changing in my organization. I did not know that queue can be long enough. First It was approved by designing team, then developers’ team, then QA team then support team. then product owner. A small design change took 4 days to approved.

In startups, you take decisions rapidly. Because no multi–level hierarchy, no need of documenting everything. Things can be approved and reject verbally for rapid decision.