Steven Kahan - Be a Startup Superstar: Ignite Your Career Working at a Tech Startup

Steven Mark Kahan

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Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data is Available

ISBN 9781119660408 (hardback)

ISBN 9781119660705 (ePDF)

ISBN 9781119660712 (ePub)

Cover Design: Wiley

Cover Image: artskill2k17/Shutterstock

I had been eagerly awaiting my first day at an enormous and very famous Wall Street investment bank. I had hit the big time! Through a family connection, I had landed an entrylevel position as my first job after college. Sure, I would be starting at the ground floor, but I was confident that I had the chops to succeed and move my way up the corporate ladder. I was super excited that morning as I introduced myself to my new manager, a grizzled Wall Street veteran.

However, with one simple action upon meeting me, the manager seemed to delight in crushing my enthusiasm. With his power move, my morning went from the wideeyed, firstday excitement and dreams of a promising career, to imagining mindnumbing drudgery for the next four decades. Did this guy, who must have seen hundreds of eager, fresh graduates just like me over the years, do this to everyone?

Before I was introduced to my new colleagues, before I knew what my initial role would be, heck, before I was even told where to pee, I was shown how to use the time clock. A time clock! Like you see in movies when they depict oldtime factories. The manager smirked as he gave me my very own punch card with my name on it within 10 minutes of the first day of my career. I was told I had to punch in when I arrived in the morning, again when I went to lunch, when I returned from lunch, and finally when I left in the evening.

A time clock? Really? Did they not trust me? Yikes, I thought, what have I gotten myself into? At that moment, I knew I had to plot my exit from the Fortune 500 company world of work.

It wasn't long before I became the sixth employee of an economic consulting company. What a fantastic career move that was. This was an environment where I was able to carve out my own path based on how my skills and interests aligned with the company's goals.

At the age of 26, I moved to Tokyo to start the company's Japan office. I went from literally punching a time clock at a massive corporation to being the sole employee of my startup company outside the home office. Soon I was doing business at a high level and making a difference. And I was having an absolute blast! The fact that I was located 6,500 miles away from the management team, plus the 12hour time difference, meant I was working when the rest of the team back in New York was asleep. And this meant that I had total and complete autonomy. I couldn't have been happier.

What a remarkable difference between the drudgery of my work as a tiny part of an enormous Fortune 500 company compared to my new work as a huge part of a small entrepreneurial venture. The lessons I learned about myself and what matters in my life have led me to continue chasing that startup culture to this day.

Now, I serve as an advisor to select emerging companies that are working to transform their industries by delivering disruptive products and services. My advisory clients include HubSpot, a company I started working with in 2007 when they had a handful of customers and fewer than 10 employees. I helped the HubSpot team grow the company to more than 60,000 customers in 90 countries, and more than $500 million in annual revenue. My current portfolio of advisory clients in the startup world also includes Mynd, Expertfile, YayPay, SlapFive, and InstaViser. I'm also a GoToMarket Limited Partner at Stage 2 Capital, a venture capital firm that invests in startup companies.

Be a Startup Superstar is the book I wish I had when I was in college and considering a career in business. It's a deep dive into startup culture and includes wonderful stories about what life is like on the inside of successful, highgrowth organizations. I found myself nodding in understanding and appreciation on each page.

This is no academic tome written by somebody who simply studies what others do. Steve Kahan is a highly successful entrepreneur himself. He's been in a number of successful startup ventures and has also been in the trenches in the hugecompany world. Steve delivers valuable insights on every page. He's your personal mentor as he guides you through the startup world.

The stories you read in these pages show you how to be successful working at a startup. In my experience, there is a huge difference in how to approach work at a megacorporation versus a startup, and Steve tells you exactly how to navigate those differences. In a big company, politics rule. Pleasing the boss is often more important than serving the customer. In the startup world, the opposite is true: Success comes from what you do to grow the business, not from what you do to serve the egos of the mucketymucks with big titles. Steve uses realworld examples to point out those differences so you can navigate your career with skill.