// 3 Learnings From My Past Year in Tech Startups //

Last year, I left the financial industry to join the world of startups.  A year flew by, I have developed a new sense of belonging and responsibility to this community, drawing me more closely to this industry that I’ve long been fascinated with.

Having worked in a startup and founded one, I’m now at crossroads on next steps and taking this vantage point for reflection.  A few things have helped me tremendously in my journey in the past year.

1) People to hold you accountable. 
Looking back, my path in startups has been marked with awesome people - my first stint in Beijing startup scene and subsequently starting my first venture with two seasoned entrepreneurs in Hong Kong were all through mutual friends introduction. 

Currently as I transition into a new path, I’ve found the startup community, tremendously resourceful and inspirational.  There’s no formula for the success of startups.  Yet I believe the key to the knowledge is in the connected group of people, or someone calls it the “information equity”.  

The startup mentality of “pay it forward” and giving back is what makes this community unique. Through office hours, blogging, or talking to other people in different stages in their startup experience, it can evolve into a virtuous cycle in maintaining a sense of accountability through a network of like minded individuals.

2) Focus on the why, be agile in the how. 
As Steve Jobs famously says, you can only connect the dots by looking back.  On one hand, I find it important to trust that what you are doing now will connect in the future to a bigger picture or path that makes sense.  On the other hand, it is as crucial to know why you are doing this to begin with.  
Startup world is chaotic and can be distracting if the why is not clear.  Some people work in startups with a clear goal to found their own company some day, some are for the ability to sell things they love.  For me, it boils down to the love of sheer leverage and connecting people by technology and to be part of something that makes a big splash to the world.

Once the why is set, be flexible in how to achieve the goal.  Moving from the finance industry where career paths are pretty much set (3 years of analysts then promoted to 3 years of associate, etc), I found it daunting initially to be faced with a complete blank canvas.  Yet the more I have made decisions from my own “why”, the more comfortable and intuitive the decision-making process becomes.   Getting used to working and failing fast is like a muscle, the more you flex it, the better it develops. 

3) Stay in motion. 
Working on a startup is a marathon with many short sprints.  That means it requires explosive energy and endurance.  It is up to the team to define a pace, but one thing I have learned is that, staying in motion is the key. 

No matter it is your company or yourself, there will be days that things are getting rough and getting out of bed seems more difficult by day.  One mindhack I find useful is to cut down the tasks into smaller ones, say achievable within 1-2 hour.  By the end of each day, it simply feels awesome to cross off 7-8 items compared to half of a two-day task. 

For bigger decisions, I’m also abiding to this.  After departing the recent startup, I’m standing at a cross road looking for new opportunities, hopefully something related to product and helping a US startup expand to international markets.  As I actively explore next steps, I enrolled in the Hackbright Academy this summer in San Francisco and will learn Python amongst 15 other aspiring hackers.  Coming from an Econ background, I have a limited technical knowhow of HTML/CSS, basic JavaScript and Ruby on Rails, and am very excited about coding and shipping Monday through Friday in the next ten weeks. 

And I look forward to sharing my journey on this blog.