You know, as most entrepreneurs do, that a company is only as good as its people. The hard part is actually building the team that will embody your company's culture and propel you forward.
Kathryn Minshew
I know, being the odd one out can feel brutal. But, rest assured, it's also wonderful - because your desire to do things differently isn't 'uncool.' In fact, it's the exact opposite.
Understanding your employee's perspective can go a long way towards increasing productivity and happiness.
You won't be exiled to permanent unemployment just because there's a picture somewhere of you holding a red Solo cup and looking underage. But, your Google results tell a story: Have you been in the news? Authored articles or blog posts? What types of topics do you frequently tweet about?
Don't let that nagging fear - that feeling that being different automatically qualifies you as being wrong - eat away at you.
Done right, a performance review is one of the best opportunities to encourage and support high performers and constructively improve your middle- and lower-tier workers.
I always encourage people to learn the basics and nail the basics. Take the time to customize your resume and cover letter to reflect your qualifications, your research on the specific company and position, and how you believe you can add value.
It's not just hours and pay that are important anymore. People want to know what the company is like, what the culture is.
It's often said that if doing something was easy, everyone would be doing it. I think that's particularly true when you're trying to make your mark or architect your own career. There's often not a path to follow.
I had been a veteran of pretty challenging job searches, so I knew firsthand how frustrating, confusing, and demoralizing the job search process can be. Even after you get a job, many people join companies and discover in the first couple weeks that they aren't a good match with the personality and values of the company.
Millennials can be very hardworking, but it's easier to tell the story of the ones who are entitled.
Employers are looking for individuals who can tell a story about what they bring to a particular company, and people with an understanding of that have a much better chance of getting to where they want to go.
People actually aren't moving on from companies much more quickly than in the past, but there's a perception that they do, so companies are investing less in talent on the assumption that young employees won't stay long.
For almost the first year of The Muse's life, I would do 5 to 8 networking events a week. And I don't necessarily think that's the right path for everyone, but I realized that as an entrepreneur, one of my strengths was finding the right people who could help us. I didn't come into startups with any network.
The Muse should be a trusted destination for answers. A hand when you need one. Someone to talk you through tough decisions or situations. A starting point.
There are always going to be obstacles. I think the bigger your aspirations, the larger the obstacles.
Every generation brings something new to the workplace, and millennials are no exception. As a group, they tend to be highly educated, love to learn, and grew up with the Internet and digital tools in a way that can be highly useful when leveraged properly.
Having a co-founder is incredible, but it has to be the right person: someone who shares your values and ethics, absolutely, but also someone who has a similar vision for the future in terms of their appetite for risk, for low salaries, for hard work.
I probably have a small number of people that are consistently advisors and mentors, but I'm much more likely to have a broader array of... almost like an unofficial board of advisors, where I know that certain people are going to be good for certain types of topics.
Sure, it's fun to chat with people with interesting backgrounds who seem to have a passion for your company. But a job interview is not a friendly chat. You need to determine whether candidates, can they really do the job. So ask them to prove it.
Employees don't need to be best friends, but there does need to be a level of mutual respect and understanding.
Ultimately, I think it takes a certain grit and determination to constantly re-prove to people that you're just as dedicated, just as determined, and just as capable as the entrepreneurs around you who may better fit the physical pattern - but on the flipside, women who succeed often become razor sharp through the process.
For many people, the hardest thing about job-seeking is figuring out where to start. All through college, I heard my friends asking themselves, 'What do I want to do with my life?' And guess what? After college, and after that first job, people still ask the same question.
We knew when we started the Daily Muse, we wanted a recruiting-focused business model rather than an advertising-focused one. We felt like publishers were being forced to go to more and more extreme lengths to monetize through advertising.
I'm an entrepreneur, so I've got to be ruthless about 'me' time if I want to have any left to myself! I make myself leave the office by 8 or 9 P.M. most nights, even if I do curl up with my laptop and a glass of wine at home to get through email.
Keeping a 'CEO blog' or 'founder's blog' can be a great platform for engaging your users in a nontraditional way, reaching people outside of your product pitch and building rapport without selling them anything except a belief in your ideas.
It's all too easy to forget that cultural fit is a two-way street. Yes, the candidate needs to gel well with your company's vibe and mission. But, you also need to fit in with her desires, goals, and long-term career vision. It's not a one-sided relationship.
When The Daily Muse initially wanted to launch a job board, our first ideas were insanely (and needlessly) complex. We wanted to integrate with social networks, gather rich personal data to build predictive algorithms, and put together numerous cool visualization tools before launching out to the world. We were just sure users would love it!
Job seekers light up when they find The Muse - we're a breath of fresh air in a stale, musty world. Our user experience focuses first and foremost on the individual, on providing them information - from content to company profiles - to make the most pressing professional decisions in their lives.
Sure, you're an intelligent and highly capable individual, and you are learning a lot on the fly as you build your company. But you also need to come to terms with the fact that there are things you have chosen not to be an expert in.
The most important thing in startups is getting a product to market, as imperfect as it may be, and then iterating on it and continually making it better. A first rev of a site that has a few typos may not be perfect, but it was the start of something that I deeply believed in.
Much-derided chick lit, chick flicks, and chick magazines have left ambitious women in a bind. Why is it that I, a young woman, can read 'GQ,' enjoy 'Fight Club,' and subscribe to 'Thrillist,' while the idea of a guy doing the same with 'Glamour,' '27 Dresses' and 'Daily Candy' is nearly unheard of?
Work-life balance for founders doesn't look like work-life balance for everyone else. Starting a company isn't a nine-to-six job - or a nine-to-nine job, or a nine-to-midnight job.
Most weeks, I work 100-plus hours on TheMuse.com. There are definitions of 'work-life balance' that would say I have none.
I am a big advocate for having an open discussion about team norms and preferences. At The Muse, some of us like to start working at 7:30 A.M. Others focus best from 10 P.M. to 2 A.M. Create a culture where it's acceptable not to be working when someone else is working.
Even your most talented employees have room for growth in some area, and you're doing your employee a disservice if the sum of your review is: 'You're great!' No matter how talented the employee, think of ways he could grow towards the position he might want to hold two, five, or 10 years down the line.
When you start a new company, you have to do it all. Yes, all of it.
It's fantastic to be known as a company that responds quickly to users, shares great resources and friendly banter with them over Twitter, and forges relationships on Pinterest, Facebook, and every other social media site out there.
If you're able to arrange a trial period with a new hire, do it. It will give both of you a chance to make sure the position is a good fit - and can help you avoid being in the awkward situation of wanting to fire someone three or four weeks in.
Launching a start-up, you need to get a lot done quickly. Every day is different. Everyone pitches in with everything. It's easy for the founding team to say, 'We're flexible. We all help out with everything!' But when it comes to making decisions - that flexibility can spell inefficiency and disaster.
As we've grown 'The Daily Muse' and met contacts who want to collaborate with us, knowing who does what has helped us be clear on who we want our partners to connect with - and makes us look buttoned up, too. SEO firm? Talk to our COO. An editor from the 'Huffington Post?' Meet our Editor-in-Chief.
Call it nature or nurture, there are differences in how men and women approach professional conduct, and facing these issues head-on will make us all more equipped to succeed.
For those working menial jobs or putting in 100-hour weeks for corporations, the lure of starting your own business can seem like a great way to get more flexibility, upside, and ownership.
Thinking big is only one part of being a successful entrepreneur.
When I started my first company, I still had a 40-hour a week job. I was working on my company on nights and weekends before I took the plunge and gave up a salary.
My first company failed completely. And it failed at about ten months old. I had about 12 months of savings, so when it failed I was thinking: 'Do I go back to work?' And at that point I believed so deeply in what I was doing that I couldn't imagine anything else other than trying to make this business work.
The first time you meet someone, they're a new acquaintance, the second time you have a bit of an understanding, and the third time you meet them, you're old hats.
So many of my rookie mistakes could have been avoided by first-hand exposure to other, more experienced technology entrepreneurs.
When talking to first-time entrepreneurs, I often ask them: 'How do you know that people want your product or service?' As you can expect, the answer is often that they don't yet, but will know once they launch. And they're right. That's why it's critical to launch as quickly as possible so you can get that feedback.
Get your product in front of actual, living, breathing strangers. Your college roommate's approval does not mean there's market demand.
