5 Tips on Working for a Virtual StartUp

Nowadays, it’s possible to go to an office address and find that the company you’re looking for doesn’t physically exist there. At all. Technology has enabled the employees of an entire company to work from home. 

Some of these companies are startups that are 100 percent virtual. These companies are great if you hate commuting and love working in your own space. But, as startups, they also have their drawbacks.

Keep these five tips in mind if you’re thinking of working for a 100% remote startup company. These tips can improve your success at working for such a company in the long term.

1 Believe in the mission and vision

Look into the company’s mission and vision before you go to your job interview. The company’s goals should completely line up with yours. Of course, you want to work for a company with a purpose you believe in. With a startup, it is even more crucial that you aren’t working for the paycheque. Here’s why.

Startups are start-ups. The journey can be bumpy as the company experiences growing pains. Roles for each person may constantly change. Policies and procedures may frequently update as the company tries to determine what works and what doesn’t. Even the company’s products and services may change as it adjusts to become a better fit for its ideal customers. 

If the company’s goals are goals you fully support, it makes the constant shifting and adjusting easier to bear.

2 Be flexible and open to change

If you’re going to work for a startup, you absolutely must embrace change. As the company grows at a rapid pace, more people will join the team. Roles and responsibilities will shift. You may find yourself working with more team members or find yourself managing a team. You may have more tasks on your to-do list. Or you may have fewer, more specialized tasks as your role becomes more defined.

Procedures may also improve and change over time as the company experiments with different types of software. Instead of tracking your hours on a simple spreadsheet or table, you now need to learn to use customer management software (CRM software) such as Salesforce. Instead of casually mentioning in a chat that you finished a task, you’ll need to write your update in a project management tool, such as Trello, Asana, or Click Up.

3 Take initiative

A startup company is still figuring out many things. Just picture a company that is settling into its office on moving day. Office equipment and office furniture are everywhere as people try to figure out where everyone will sit and what will go in each room.

Some startups don’t have a human resources (HR) department or a clear line of authority. In these cases, you may need to be more assertive than you’re comfortable with. For example, if the person you report to is disrespectful to you, you’ll need to figure out who you could talk to about your boss. Similarly, without an HR, you won’t have someone to speak to about disrespectful treatment by a coworker. You will also have to take initiative about getting a raise because the company is still figuring out what the pay raises, bonuses, and benefits should be.

4 Be prepared to put in extra hours and effort

Working for a startup could mean working extra hours and putting in more effort. Depending on how established the startup is, the company may require you to work longer days to get procedures set up. They may be short staffed, so you’ll find yourself taking on the role of more than one person.

At some companies, they will appreciate the extra effort and reward you with a promotion, such as a change in job title or responsibilities, or better pay. At other companies, particularly those that aren’t well organized, your extra effort will be required but will go unnoticed. They will expect you to work weekends and evenings in addition to regular office hours.  

5 Invest in yourself

If you’re working for a virtual startup, you may feel a bit disconnected, especially if you’re a social extrovert. You may only know the person who brought you into the company after the job interview. You’ll also know the people who you work with regularly. But everyone else will be just a name in a chat group. You don’t get to meet people casually in the hallway or during lunch break. 

The people you work with may not remember to introduce you to key members of the team or remember to show you how to use the software you’ll need. 

It’s up to you to reach out and remind them of your skills if you want a promotion or pay raise. Your supervisor may not remember these details, especially if the team has been growing and your supervisor has changed and there is no HR department. 

Learning new skills is important, especially when it comes to technology. No one from the IT Department is going to knock on your door to help you set up your computer or connect to your internet. If you lose your internet connection or your computer breaks down, you lose your lifeline to your virtual job. 

Key Takeaways

Not all startups are the same. Leadership affects how the company treats its employees. If there is strong leadership, the startup will grow quickly while providing the support that each person needs. People will feel acknowledged and appreciated for their work. If you’re considering working for a virtual startup, be prepared to put in extra effort and be ready for rapid and constant change.

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How Modern Clocks Replaced Two Jobs

Jobs and Tech

Which type of person are you? Do you jump out of bed, eager to start the day, when your alarm goes off? Or do you do what it takes to shut off your alarm, curses and hand slamming included? 

No matter which type you are, you likely had that alarm set because you needed to be somewhere in the morning, and you needed your alarm clock to stop you from sleeping in. Imagine life without your alarm clock. If you forget to set your clocks back or ahead for daylight savings, your computer or phone does it for you, leaving one less excuse to be late for work.

Now let’s turn the clocks back (so to speak) to years ago, when clocks weren’t as reliable as they are now. Workers needed people, not tech, to help them get up on time in the morning. Back then, people could get a job to help people keep time.

knocker-uppers

Years ago, people either didn’t have reliable alarm clocks or couldn’t afford a clock. They also couldn’t be late for work. During the Industrial Revolution, being on time for work was crucial.

In some European countries, workers paid a knocker-up, also called a knocker-upper, to wake them up on time. The knocker-upper used a baton or stick to tap on the worker’s window to wake that person up. In some cases, they would tap the window several times, and in other cases, they would continue to tap until they were sure their client was awake.

It wasn’t just the working class that employed knocker-uppers. Wealthy families would employ them to knock non-stop at their window until they woke up. Other knocker-uppers used straws to shoot peas at clients’ windows.

Shooting peas (and being paid to do so) sounds like fun for people of any age, but of course there’s a catch. A person doing this job needs to be a night owl who is willing to stay up and work at night. Most knocker-uppers were elderly men and women. Some were police constables who took on this side gig during early morning patrols.

clock keepers

Another job created because people couldn’t rely on their clocks was the role of clock keeper. Back in Middle Age Europe, clock keepers were paid a lot of money to make sure that the clock or clocks in their care were keeping time accurately.

A clock keeper may have been employed by one person, such as the owner of a manor, or a group of people, such as an entire town. Regulating the town clock was a huge responsibility. Similarly, maintaining the clock of a monastery was an important job. The church’s schedule and rituals relied on that clock.

Key Takeaways

The need for a clock keeper with excellent math skills is no longer required today. We also don’t require someone to tap on our windows to tell us it’s time to get up for work. We expect that our clocks and alarm clocks are reliable.

Modern inventions have replaced these two jobs, but they have created other jobs for people to create better time-keeping devices.

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Creating Team Connections for Remote Teams

What comes to mind when you hear “teamwork” with your coworkers? Most likely, working in person in an office together with other people. However, these days, teamwork has taken on a new meaning for global companies with employees and contractors in multiple time zones. How do you develop a sense of community and company culture when your remote team is spread across countries?

Post continued on vanya’s blog.

How to Conquer Your Fears

Fear is scary. It can physically and mentally cripple you. For example, people have gotten stage fright and forgotten their lines while standing, momentarily paralyzed on the stage. Have you had a similar experience? What are you afraid of?

Everyone is afraid of something. The harder part is facing your fears and conquering them. The secret to defeating your fears is to break them down into pieces. 

Here are four fears and how to conquer them.

Fear of becoming overwhelmed. In life, we can be overwhelmed by everything we need to do, from personal to professional projects. Selling or buying a house, leading your first major project, or starting a job that is different from what you’ve done in the past. You are hit by a tsunami of questions – what do you do first? What if you forget to do something important? 

The first step is to make a plan and break down a major task into a series of steps. If necessary, get help from a mentor or an expert or someone available. Ask for advice on what to do when buying a home. See if a coworker can help with a piece of the project. Just work on one small task at a time, instead of taking on everything as one goal.

Fear of things. Phobias are often out of your control. You just fear what you fear, such as spiders, snakes, heights, or tight spaces. 

But if you arm yourself with knowledge, you can slowly start to chip away at your fear. For example, if you fear spiders, read a book about spiders and learn everything you can about them. The question is WHAT should you fear about your fear. Being bitten by a spider and reacting to the venom is a true concern. Being fearful of a tarantula because it is sitting next to you, minding its own business and enjoying the weather – that’s a fear in your mind. Knowledge is power. 

Fear of situations. Public speaking is a term that many people dread. You have no control over how people think of you. Will you make a mistake when you speak? Will people judge you and think that you’re awful even though you thought your presentation was flawless?

To overcome your fear of these types of situations, put yourself in these situations more often. (This probably seems like a nightmare in itself.) Start with something small, such as going onstage to announce the next speaker. Or making a presentation in front of a small group of supportive friends before you start presenting in front of a large group of prospective clients.

Fear of failure. Everyone fears failure. It’s embarrassing, and it’s a terrible feeling to disappoint yourself or someone else. However, failure gives us painful but valuable lessons. Any business owner will tell you that the road to success is not easy and failure (or failures) is something you encounter on your journey.

To succeed, you develop mental toughness. When failure happens, ask yourself what you would do differently next time. What lessons did you learn? In business, it’s tough when you think you have a prospective customer or client, and after much discussion, talks fall through. Or you find you have successfully closed what turns out to be the client from hell. It happens. It’s a learning process.

We face our fears every day. Today, on Halloween, take a moment to think about your greatest fears and how you will overcome them. 

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Do you live to work or work to live?

These days, we are asked tough questions. We are living through difficult times.

You hear stories of people losing their job for the second time in the same year.

People who have applied to 500 jobs and gotten no responses or job interviews.

Businesses that have been posting jobs have no responses.

These are tough times.

What advice do you have to connect those looking for work with those who are looking for employees?