“Startup Culture” Vs. Startup Culture

Now that I’m past the halfway point in my internship I feel like I’m really getting to know a lot of the startups in our incubator programs. For the first few weeks it was really difficult for me to remember all of the names, faces, and companies that work out of our space every day. Now I feel that I’ve reached a point where I could give a decent pitch on what most of our member companies do or sell, which makes me more confident when I create promotional materials for them.

This post is supposed to be about perspectives, so I thought I’d write about my preconceived notions about startup culture and what turned out to be right or wrong about them. Companies of all sizes like to say that they have “startup culture” because it sounds cool and easygoing, but I think that in actuality the culture of young businesses is less appealing than it’s made out to be. For instance, a key part of both real and perceived startup culture is flexible work hours. This sounds great (and usually is) until something time-sensitive comes up and none of your coworkers are around, leaving you wishing (if only for a moment) that you could count on people being at their desks 9-5. On the other hand, a positive aspect of startup culture that I have found to be both true and pervasive is that almost everyone is friendly, eager, and hungry to network. This has been great for me in anticipation of my job search next year. It’s refreshing when startup founders are enthusiastic to connect and learn about what I’m working on, rather than the norm at large companies that seemingly mandates that the higher-ups aren’t allowed to care about what the interns are doing.

All-in-all experiencing startup culture first-hand has been enjoyable, but has proven to me that I am the type of person that does better with more structure. Knowing this makes me more comfortable thinking about applying for entry-level position at larger companies when I graduate next year.

One last note on startup culture: our office does, of course, have a Ping-Pong table.