A Leap of Faith: The Most Important Ingredient When Working With a Startup Company

If there’s anything that I’ve learnt from my 3-year working with Fashionese Daily is that working with a startup company requires one big thing: a leap of faith. Why? Unlike any big businesses that are already established you would be starting with the minimum – space, manpower, resources and even network. It’s also part and partial due to the fact that whatever it is that you want and expected of you is merely a “dream” and nothing really concrete like being a part of established company where everything is already measurable.

The term “startup” came about in the last decade popularised by the young breeds of the dot-com bubble era who take a bolder move to go ahead and make their mark in the economic wheel. Working with giant established company isn’t as appealing anymore for some because it’s just too mainstream. Being part of the fast-growing new business which often are technological ventures, became the “it” thing.

When I took upon the position of Managing Editor of Fashionese Daily 3 years ago, I left a position that I just newly acquired with wide open challenges and opportunities that sounded promising. But at that time I was at a cornerstone of my life where all I wanted was to actually do what I love to do, mainly because of personal reason. It also hit me hard that I had been working for almost 7 years and I wasn’t exactly where I wanted to be. But it’s so hard to leave your comfort zone especially to a new work environment where the office is just slightly bigger than your current private work space. I had to leave the luxury of having my own room and had to work in an open space that I share with couple others. At one time when we still occupied the 15 sqm space in Bangka, I was literally sitting shoulder to shoulder with my co-worker because we had such limited space.

First alert sign came when I was negotiating with Hani and Affi about taking me aboard as a member of the team. Being a very newly established company that is still strugling with cash flow means that they can’t afford to give the same remuneration package as what I received at that time.

After I tender in my resignation with the company I was working for, there were time where I would second guess my decision. Would I be able to deliver what was expected of me and drive the growth that the company needed with such a limited resources and network? That is when you need to trust your guts and have a faith in your competence to really prevail the doubt. But if there’s one big merit in working with a startup is that you have the chance to really pursue something that you’re passionate about and able to shape the growth as well as direction of the business to where you want it to. Another merit that outweighs the decrease of the remuneration package is the flexibility and agility of small business that allows you to tackle issues heads on without having to face too many bureaucracy and once it take off you can make your mark into it.

The most important thing to have when working for a startup company is not an awesome business plan and strategy – that will come later – but a leap of faith that you will be able to make this place that you’ll be working on BIG! That leap of faith will come about if you could see the bigger picture that is so far in the future of how you want the business that you’re a part of going and not contemplating on the scene in front of you. Because if you don’t believe in that future that you’ve painted in your mind, nobody else will, and being a new business you will need to convince people and “sell your dream” until one day that dream becomes so vivid and puff out of thin air it becomes your reality.

Now the days of washing my own dishes and mopping the floor  whenever the rain pours and water starts to seep into our office are gone. We have our office boy to do chores around the office. My table is currently double the size of our Bangka office that is a mere 15 sqm shared between 5 people, and we’re now occupying 300 sqm with 24 other people! Gone are the days where I’ve to live frugally because now the company is able to almost triple my starting salary as their business really took off.

Looking back to that day where I sat with Hani and Affi at the back of Hani’s boutique Closet Quickies discussing about what they’re expected of me three years ago, I’m very convincedd now that I’ve made the right decision. To pursue my passion and to make the dream of making Fashionese Daily big a reality and not just the stuff that we (Hani, Affi and I) talked about every now and then over our YM chat sessions. To say that this is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made is an understatement, there should be a bigger word than “best” to describe it.