5 Reasons To Work At a Startup

Working at a startup is different than working at a traditional large corporate company but different doesn’t have to bad. Different might be exactly what you need or want to take that next step in your career. Equity While most startups won’t be able to pay you top salary, they often offer equity. Equity gives […]

5 Reasons To Work At a Startup

Equity

While most startups won’t be able to pay you top salary, they often offer equity. Equity gives you feeling of ownership as well as giving you motivation to do well, after all its your company too.

If the company does well and goes public the financial upside could be large, in some cases life changing. So, it’s definitely something to take into account, but also important to remember that not every startup makes it big.

Smaller and different culture

A startup company will be smaller and more intimate than your average company, you will therefore have a bigger say in how things are done. There is a reason most startups are looking for a someone that’s an autonomous self-starters, as you are likely to have more responsibility and more autonomy, which for some people is perfect but might not be for everyone.

The startup culture is fast paced and always trying to move forward. You’ll work closely with your co-workers and get to know them well. You’ll most likely be surrounded by highly motivated people working towards a common goal. A larger corporate company is likely to have lots of rules and procedures that often slow down the work, at a startup its less about that and more about embracing change and moving quickly

Learning experience

Working at a startup will force you to learn, and usually means you’ll have a lot more responsibility than you might do at a larger corporation. You’ll be encouraged to think outside the box and be experimental. The upside of this being part of a smaller team will make sure your efforts are noticed. It will also likely mean you take on more than what your initial role intended, for example a front-end developer might have to take part in the marketing. While the marketer will work so closely with the front-end developer he will gain better understanding of the process.

A side effect of that is you will likely develop your interpersonal and teaching skills, both of which are transferable skills that can be valuable further down the road in your career.

Creative opportunities

Chances are an early startup might require you to get creative when it comes to solutions. This can be due lack of expertise in a given subject, or simply that the company doesn’t have the funding to use more traditional solutions.

You are also most likely working on something new that hasn’t been done before, so thinking outside of the box to solve a problem might be necessary. So, if you have a creative mind and want to be able to input your own ideas, a startup could give you the opportunity to do so.

Growth opportunities

Working on the product from the beginning automatically makes you an expert on it. With that, and in combination with the extra responsibilities you are likely to pick up along the way makes you an ideal candidate for a management position when that time comes. Being involved early on in a startup is likely to result in a faster career trajectory than in a traditional larger corporation.

The extra responsibilities will also look great on your CV when the time comes to move onto the next chapter in your career.

Startup to Watch: MySense

Startup to Watch: MySense

Here at Work In Startups, we’re on a mission to champion the best and most exciting startups in the UK. To support this, we’re starting a new blog series highlighting some of the most innovative and fast-growing startups around. Follow us as we interview startup founders and employees across the country and find out more about their goals and ambitions, what the future holds and (for all you startup jobseekers out there looking for the inside scoop) what they look for in a prospective employee.

This week, we’re interviewing Lucie Glenday, Founder and CEO of MySense.ai, a wellbeing analytics platform that helps users achieve an awareness of how subtle changes in their health can manifest as changes in wellbeing and their ability to cope in their day to day lives. MySense is growing rapidly thanks to a number of global partnerships and a strong, capable team. They are on track to have their wellbeing platform in over 100,000 homes around the world. We look forward to seeing what they achieve (and they’re hiring for a Frontend Lead, a Senior Severless AWS/NodeJS Engineer, a Business Analyst and a Java/IoT/Linux Engineer on Work in Startups!)

What would you say MySense’s mission is?

To help people with vulnerabilities live as independently as possible for as long as possible with dignity. Whether you are 80 or 25, have complex physical or mental health concerns, we want to give you the tools and information necessary to be as independent as possible. We also want to give these tools and information to your support network.

What are your values as a startup employer?

Being positively brilliant! We see ourselves as a family that doesn’t follow the crowd. We aren’t afraid to ask difficult questions and be wrong – this is important for growth and development.

As for the people that we recruit, we put people’s personability before skills and experience. We firmly believe that you can teach skills and experience, but it’s harder (if not impossible) to change someone’s personality and attitude. In conjunction with this, we really value compulsive learners – so people that are always hungry to learn more and grow. Lastly, we look for people that are respectful and actively listen. There are people that listen but you know they’re not really taking it in. We want people that absorb and digest what others are saying before showcasing their own views and opinions.

We have a 5/5 rating on Glassdoor, which I believe is reflective of the time and effort we put into ensuring we get the right people through the door. We ask a lot of tough questions in the interview process and it’s definitely quite intense, but it’s a key reason we have such an incredible work force. It’s also partly why we have such a low churn rate – until a month ago we didn’t lose anyone we didn’t want to lose! This is also reflective of the fact that staff love working here and we invest in our employees.

We are also a globally focused work force and continually challenge each other in terms of our cultural biases, which is another great thing about MySense. For example, we don’t want to just focus on white, western assumptions of wellbeing – we want to challenge these from an Asian and African perspective to develop a more holistic understanding of the term.

Separately, we want to make sure that MySense is a safe place to work, whilst also being inspiring and challenging. This is especially important given that no startup is ever fully liquid and there can be lots of stresses. I think we’ve managed to find the right balance and developed a great, supportive culture where we all respect one another and are motivated by the same mission.

What has your growth been like?

I founded MySense in 2016, so it’s three and a half years old now! In the first year it was just me, but we’ve since grown to 42 people and growth projections are huge for the upcoming financial year. We’ve partnered with a number of care organisations in the UK and we’re rapidly expanding our global partnerships – it’s an exciting time.

We recruit a real mixed bag of people because we’re after a load of different skills. We have deep technical engineers, ops and finance managers, supply chain type people, a commercial team and clinicians! We’re looking to expand on all fronts over the next few years.

What does 2020 hold in store for MySense?

As I’ve mentioned above, we’re growing! We’re also extremely fortunate with our partners in the market. We have some large partners in the network and large contracts, but we’re also looking to expand in the marketplace and become a lot more visible.

We want to spend a lot more time on the brand elements, for example on product placement and we’re looking forward to working with large companies like McCarthy & Stone. Expect to see roll out across those companies in 2020!

We’re also expanding into two new territories. MySense was incorporated in Canada last year and we’re launching in the Canadian market later in the year! Plans to launch in a European territory are also in the works.

Do you have any advice for people thinking about founding their own startup but currently unsure?

There’s a huge element of luck, which can’t be underplayed. Often, it’s about being at the right place at the right time. What works for one person, in virtue of the people they have spoken to and know etc., won’t work for another.

If it doesn’t work, just keep going! Tenacity is key – you’ve got to be a bulldozer and believe in yourself. There will be people along the way that won’t believe in your vision and won’t think it’s going to work. If you can keep going despite this and tune out the white noise – this is a great step!

Also, don’t underestimate the power of a great team. If you have a core team of brilliant people around you that share your vision, this counts for a huge amount. They challenge you on a daily basis, and you’ve got to make sure you are believing in them and their ability as much as you believe in yourself!

And lastly, founding a startup is very hard work. I have three kids and I’m always busy. I take the kids to school first thing in the morning, I then go to work and do a full day at the office before coming home in the evenings and putting food on the table. After I’ve put the kids to bed, I then keep working! If I decided to work a 9-5, MySense wouldn’t have happened – you’ve got to work really, really hard to make your dream a reality. It’s tough building something from the ground up!

Startup To Watch: CausaLens

Startup To Watch: CausaLens

This week we’re interviewing Apostolos Lymperis, Business Growth Strategist at CausaLens – a London deeptech startup that leads causal AI research, which is a major step towards developing true AI. Their technology transforms organisations by autonomously discovering valuable insights that optimise business outcomes. Their flagship product, a Causality Infused AutoML for time-series, goes beyond both traditional machine learning and AutoML – it has become the industry standard in the financial sector and other industries.

What would you say CausaLens’s mission is?

Our startup mission is to develop Causal AI. We’re developing Artificial Intelligence that understands cause and effect and can solve the most challenging problems. For example, there are some challenging problems in financial markets and static AI models can’t really solve them. Traditional AI doesn’t properly work in dynamic, complicated systems like this.

What are your values as an ambitious startup?

One of our values is drive and resilience. In order to succeed as a growing startup, we need people that are willing to take the initiative and be bold. Our product is still developing, so we love it when people take ownership of tasks and drive innovation. We find that really happens when people are passionate about our mission and what we’re trying to achieve.

Another one of our company values is trust and accountability. When you care about what you’re doing and feel that you’re contributing to a great vision – you want to be accountable for what you’re doing. We want everyone to feel that we are attributing and making movements towards that vision!

Lastly, we want our startup employees to be kind and inspirational. We’re a small team, and kindness and trustworthiness are vital if we’re to feel comfortable around each other. We spend a lot of time together (and many nights!), so being able to feel comfortable and trust the people around us is super important. As for inspiration – we are doing a lot of hard work and need the people around us to continually inspire and contribute to the higher vision. Our product is driven by innovation, so it’s important that we are motivated and inspire each other.

What has your growth been like?

CausaLens was founded in 2017 by Darko Matovski and Maksim Sipos, and has been growing pretty rapidly since! Two years ago we were a team of 5 and now we’re a team of 20. In a year from now we’re looking to be 40-50, so we’re definitely a startup looking to hire!

We’ve also hit various milestones along the way. We’ve closed two major seed funding rounds (one of which was one of the biggest startup seed funding in Europe) and we’ve started working with some of the most sophisticated organisations in finance. Our client roster is growing day by day and it’s exciting to witness and be a part of. To add to the excitement, we’re moving to a cool new startup office in Hammersmith! This is necessary to support our growth.

What does 2020 hold in store for CausaLens?

We want to be the go-to place for causal AI. We also want to attract more top engineers and scientists as this will help us develop our product offering. If you’re a world class researcher that’s passionate about our mission – please do get in touch, we’d love to work with you.

Additionally, we want to cement ourselves as the industry standard in finance. We already have a very good reputation here and clients from all over the world, but we’re looking to grow our client base. As well as exploring this market further, we’re looking to diversify and bring value to other industries such as logistics and transportation. We have a few cool projects in the works, but they’re customer sensitive so I have to keep my lips sealed (for now)!

I would also say that our primary focus for startup hiring is London. We’re a tight-knit team and prefer having all of our engineers in one place – it’s easier to work through things this way and develop our product offering. However, in the long run I could definitely see us opening offices in other big financial sectors. This is still some way off, though!

What do you look for in an employee?

When hiring for our startup, we look for people that match our values and are excited about our vision of optimising the global economy. There are so many inefficiencies in the global economy and we want to eradicate (or at least reduce) these. If you embrace the value of our vision and are excited about the technologies we are building, then that’s a strong motivation for applying. Passion is, without a doubt, the most important thing!

We’re also growing extremely fast and as a result appreciate people that take initiative, are accountable and are driven. These are the people that bring huge value to CausaLens. How far we get is ultimately up to every individual that works here.

Additionally, we’re looking for people with scientific minds. Over 70% of our employees hold PhDs in quantitative fields, which should give you an indication of the technology we’re building and the employees we attract. Many of our engineers bring their research to our product and it has gotten better as a result. And if you’re not technically a developer but can still code as well, you’re a double threat! We don’t want to be a place where our research will be applied in 20 years, we want to build technology that can be applied now as this is where we can drive value.

We also look for people that are personable and friendly. We’re a tight-knit group (there are currently only 20 of us) and know each other really well. We often go out for drinks together and do things outside of work – so we look for people that want to get involved and become part of our startup family.

Do you have any advice for young people founding their own startup?

Be bold! And be ambitious. Founding your own startup takes a lot of time, patience and sleepless nights. It also requires you to make sacrifices. This is only really worth it if you’re building something that you’re passionate about and think can make a big impact. The VC world appreciates ingenuity and impactful ideas too, and is prepared to invest big in game changing technology.

So, set the bar high and make sure your startup idea contributes some greater idea/value to the world. Even if you fail (and 90% of startups do) it will be a great learning experience and you’ll cultivate resilience. You’ve got to adopt the mindset that the sky’s the limit and even if you don’t succeed – you’ll do your best!

Startup to Watch: IMMO Investment Technologies

Startup to Watch: IMMO Investment Technologies

This week, we’re interviewing Avinav Nigam, Co-Founder of IMMO Investment Technologies: a startup that’s radically disrupting real estate. It digitally sources, appraises and acquires centrally located properties at scale on behalf of institutional investors. The acquired properties are then fully refurbished and rented out to homeseekers on a long-term basis. IMMO Investment Technologies are growing fast, having raised €72 million in a recent funding round, and look set to make serious waves in the real estate market in Germany (and potentially the UK). To support this growth, they’re hiring equally as fast – so make sure to check out their jobs on Work in Startups.

Hi Avinav! What would you say IMMO Investment Technologies mission is?

Great question. There are two aspects to the business. The first aspect is that we want to be your housing partner for life. From when you start university and are looking to rent a student house, to when you’re retired and looking to downsize – we want to be your housing partner throughout that whole lifecycle. Typically, when people first look to rent the whole process is pretty opaque. You have no idea what your prospective landlord is like or the condition (beyond the superficial) that your rental property is in. It’s a gamble, and we firmly believe that renting shouldn’t be like that. It’s the most money anyone spends out of their income every month, but there’s no reliability of the experience. We want to standardise the whole process and be the housing partner that people are looking for: providing you with high-quality properties and a responsive, professional landlord. We also want to help people that are selling their homes by breaking the chain! We’re a tech-enabled direct home buyer, which allows individuals to sell their property without worrying about the middlemen or uncertain buyers. We can take care of legal fees, provide a binding offer and work with sellers to agree upon a completion date that works for them – allowing them to focus on their next move!

The second aspect of the mission is that we’re opening up the world’s largest asset class: residential real estate. It’s worth over €30 trillion in Europe alone, with less than 1% of institutional exposure. A lot of commercial real estate is tradable and investable, but residential property isn’t and we want to change this. Most residential property is controlled by individual landlords and mom & pop businesses, and we want to make it more accessible to investors of all sizes, starting with institutional investors. Everyone should have the ability to invest and trade in residential property as easily as they can invest and trade in stocks! We want to make residential a truly liquid asset class.

What are your values as a startup employer?

A couple of things. We are fortunate to be attracting incredibly motivated and intelligent people that bring their unique experiences to IMMO, and looking to challenge the status quo in real estate. We’ve recently hired people from Uber, Amazon, WeWork, McKinsey and Google and they’ve added a lot of value to the startup team.

Beyond this, there are a few things that are important to us – the primary being “behave like a founder”. If you hire some of the smartest people around, you can’t be micromanaging them. You’ve got to give them enough of a canvas to paint on so that they make masterpieces! So we expect our employees to behave like startup founders, take ownership of big problems and go ahead and solve it themselves.

The second thing we have found to be important is integrity. We deliver on what we promise and we expect our employees to deliver on what they promise too: it works both ways and is key to keeping IMMO thriving.

This also flows very closely into a culture of being kind and caring. We care about our people’s personal health, as well as their professional health. We champion a flexible and open work environment and don’t place limits on how people want to operate. We trust them to take ownership of their job, hence the freedom we give them to work flexibly. The kind and caring attitude we adopt makes IMMO Investment Technologies feel like a family, which is exactly the kind of startup environment we are trying to build.

We also value people that are data and tech hungry. We’re passionate about data and going in depth into what is going on from a numbers perspective. Even if a decision seems subjective from the outset, we try and see if we can take a data-driven, objective approach. This is a culture you see across the organisation.

Lastly, we really value humility. It’s one of the most effective ways of leadership, especially within a high growth startup. You have to be humble and open to being wrong, as well as open to being challenged more! We’re building something that has never been built before – a new asset class of residential real estate – and know that innovation and the best ideas can come from any level of the organisation. As startup founders, we know we’re not perfect and we’re always open to new ideas.

Can you tell us a bit about your growth over the past few years? What’s next for IMMO Investment Technologies?

We have been around for two years and have really gone from strength to strength. Two years doesn’t seem like a long time, but in ‘tech startup life’ that’s close to 20 – that’s just how fast things are moving. Every month is very important in the lifespan of our company. It’s still Day One.

When we started out, it was 3-4 of us in a WeWork in Paddington – a standard startup office in amongst a sea of other ambitious tech startup founders. Now, we’re a team of 40+ and have just moved into a two floor office space in the BBC Studios in White City. At the beginning, it was just a few of us including Christian and Samantha – my co-founders – and we were aligned by one mission: transforming the residential property market. We’ve had investors on board since day one and our growth has been pretty crazy since!

When we started out we launched our operations in the UK, but Brexit affected business to a certain extent. Investors did not have a positive outlook on the UK market and financing conditions changed rapidly, this made us shift our operations and focus on Germany as the investor appetite was high. Given the Brexit cloud has cleared somewhat with investors showing interest again, we are considering reinvigorating our UK efforts this year, but for now we want to focus on building our German business out. Most of our team is based in London, as IMMO is clearly a pan-European play, with operational teams in Germany, and some data & investments run out of India.

We became operational in our first test market, Hamburg, a year and a half ago and we’re expanding into our second and third markets over the next few months. It’s an exciting time! We’re working with large institutional investors to launch in these markets. We have been generating tens of thousands of leads – AKA people looking to sell their property to us. We inspect their properties using a standardised inspection app, and make offers based on that view as well as geo-spatial & macro trends data, using a proprietary machine learning model. Thus far, we’ve carried out more than 2,000 inspections using a standardised app, and underwritten each asset with an automated financial model. Through doing this, we’ve developed a couple of multi-million pound portfolios: one €25m portfolio, another €35m one, and soon building a €200m one! There is limitless opportunity! And we’re seeing a lot of demand for a product like this, both on the consumer and investor side. So in the future expect to see us develop more portfolios and increase the size of existing portfolios.

As for our portfolio operations in the UK: we’re very bare-boned here at the moment but plan on switching UK to full-blast as soon as we sign on more investors. Germany and the UK will definitely be our prime focus for the foreseeable future. Both are such deep markets, ripe for tech disruption! Given how deep real estate is, we could (and hope to) build a billion dollar business in each city we operate in!

What do you look for in a startup employee?

We have just hired the head of recruitment from Uber. It’s a senior hire and they’re a really strong, experienced individual – which I believe reflects our belief that people mean everything. A startup company is hollow without having a strong focus on people growth and management, which is why we have high standards in terms of who we hire and how we help them grow.

We look for people with curiosity and hunger, that question why we are doing it this way and look to do it better. These are the people that add the most value to our startup team and really contribute to our success. If you can demonstrate that you are a naturally hungry person who goes deeper and tries to understand the why, why, why of everything – you’ll do well here! Natural curiosity takes people a long way!

We also look for people with analytical, structured thinking. Given that the value chain of the business is fairly long, we look for people that demonstrate taking a structured and analytical approach to work with the ability to build for 100x scale.

Additionally, we want people that can communicate and collaborate effectively. I would say the nature of our team structures is similar to those of Amazon and Uber. We work in dispersed teams and communicate across geographies and boundaries, and want people that can forge relationships across these boundaries. Prospective employees should know how much and when to communicate – this is vital!

We hire candidates that meet the above criteria and fit our startup culture principles mentioned previously.

Do you have any advice for those thinking about founding their own startup but currently unsure?

You have to have a certain degree of ambition and a desire to challenge the status quo. If you think this describes you, then I would recommend taking an exciting startup job within an existing team for a few years before you start your own. You learn so much and definitely adopt an entrepreneurial mindset from taking a tech startup from Series A to D (for example). I would argue the kind of learning you get on those growth curves is unparalleled, and will add a lot of value to how you build your own startup out.

You might also find your Co-Founders (and investors) this way! If you’re working with a talented bunch, they will inspire and motivate you – and you might even be tempted to go into business with them further down the line. Take the Paypal Mafia, for example: the company has spawned 3 billionaires and many, many millionaires and generation defying companies. A few former employees banded together and founded YouTube, Elon Musk founded Tesla and SpaceX, and Peter Thiel founded Clarium Capital – just to name a few success stories.

Following this experience, if you are still determined to found your own startup, it will simultaneously be the most enriching and hardest experience of your life to date. Be ready to commit to it like you would commit to your own child – it really will consume most of your life. You’ve got to be prepared to make sacrifices in terms of your friendship circles and family. The startup journey is a hard one, people!

I would also say don’t be shy! Ask the best people that you encounter (whether on Linkedin or through your network etc.) for advice or to join your mission. This will prove invaluable when developing your business proposition. Additionally, I can’t stress enough how important conviction is. You need to be super convinced about your vision. If you are, you will find the same conviction in your family, friends, investors and Co-Founders – which will help you achieve your ultimate goal. You need to be able to sell your vision to them! You will also need that unwavering belief when the going gets tough.

And whatever you do, choose the right investors, particularly as an early stage startup. Money is tempting, but it’s vital that your tech investors understand your mindset and vision, and your relationship with them is one of trust, and reciprocity. They should offer you guidance and direction! We said no to strong tech investors – because we felt that they didn’t align with what we are trying to do. We are so lucky to have found incredible investors in Talis Capital, HV Holtzbrinck Ventures, Fintech Collective and Surplus capital and some of the best angels I’ve worked with, who support us every step of the way.

Startup to Watch: Commusoft

Startup to Watch: Commusoft

This week, we’re interviewing Jason Morjaria, Founder of Commusoft, a cloud-based workforce management solution for field service companies of all sizes including plumbers, gas and heating engineers, electricians and oil technicians. Commusoft is growing quickly, rapidly hiring and helping field service companies improve their value proposition.

What would you say Commusoft’s mission is?

To educate and empower field service companies to provide world class customer journeys. Field service companies traditionally have a bit of a bad rap in terms of how people perceive them. For example, when you call a plumbing company, you often wonder whether the plumber will turn up on time and get the job done in a timely matter. We want to get rid of this stigma and encourage good companies to provide good customer journeys.

When you call up a business and book a service, you have a number of interactions with them. How do they treat you? What do they say over the phone? Do they let you book the service right there and then? Once you’ve booked the service, do you get a confirmation straight away? Do you get a reminder a few days before the service? Do you know for certain that they will turn up? What about when they will turn up? Do you know what they’re like when they’re on site? Do they wear dirty boots on your carpet? All of these interaction points amalgamate into an experience that you have with this field services company. We want to educate them on how to ensure every one of these touchpoints comes with a brilliant customer experience.

It doesn’t matter how much tech you provide a business, if they don’t know how to execute on it then they’re ultimately not going to improve their business proposition. If they don’t schedule specific time slots or send well-written emails, regardless of the tech they have access to, customers will have a negative journey and, therefore, a negative overall experience. So we focus on educating our clients, implementing our job management software and reviewing their accounts and content. We have a whole team dedicated to producing marketing content for our clients, whether this be video content, blog posts or articles. We want to help them get into the shoes of their customers and ask “does what we’re doing make sense? Can we change anything?”

What are your employee values?

Definitely going “above and beyond” for our clients. This is pretty evident in our inbound content. We had one company call up the other day and say “we know you’re not Sage, but they suck at answering the phone, is there anything you can do?”, which I think is testimony to the amount of support we give our clients. They genuinely believed we would go above and beyond for them – which we would! Another support email came in asking us to consult on how their website looked, which has nothing to do with our business but they trust us and believe we can make their business more successful.

We also strongly value learning! From all the interviews we’ve conducted, every person we spoke to said they wanted to learn more, and we have an open policy about that. For example, someone in our Client Services Team was asking about SQL. She didn’t really understand it and wanted to learn more, so I set aside one hour with her in a conference room, explained it to her, and gave her tips about how to learn it. We feel people with scaleup jobs should be actively encouraged to show interest outside of their roles, and firmly believe that what you learn here shouldn’t necessarily be tied to what you do. This is exemplified by the fact that we also run cooking lessons. Cooking is a basic, fundamental skill and vital to leading a happy and healthy life – so we want our employees to know how to cook and look after themselves. We also invest significantly in our employees’ professional development. We regularly pay for formal training and conferences, which are especially important given how quickly we’ve grown. We’re adding new layers of management every year and we really don’t like the idea of someone becoming an ‘accidental manager’. If they have just started managing a team, we want to make sure that they’re supported so we have consultants come in and teach them how to be managers. We’ve loosely done this forever, but it was when we wrote it down and thought about it properly that we realised how a few things that didn’t work three years ago can be attributed to people having insufficient training.

Additionally, we think employee wellness is extremely important and this is one of our core values. Lots of us go climbing together and many practise yoga regularly, however this isn’t what makes wellness one of our startup values. The fact that we invest in it is what makes it a core value: we pay for everyone’s gym membership, climbing or swimming, etc. We also give our employees the space to do activities: if they want to attend a yoga class in the morning and get in at 10, that’s completely ok, providing they’re adept at managing their own time and make up the hours elsewhere.

Can you tell us a bit about your growth over the past few years? What’s next for Commusoft?

I started Commusoft in 2006 while I was at Aston University but I began writing code well before then. I had been writing code with one field services client in mind and realised that there was a strong business case for the software I was developing. As part of my degree, I had to do a placement year, so I went to the business school and asked if I could run my own business during that year instead. No one had ever asked to do that before, so it was quite novel, but after giving it a lot of thought they agreed. It’s funny because since then they’ve actually started encouraging entrepreneurial activity!

I was meant to return for my final year after my ‘placement’ – but I never went back. By then I had taken on 30 clients and Commusoft was doing pretty well, so there didn’t really seem any point in returning. I met our CTO, Raj, in 2008 and we grew Commusoft steadily until about 2013 – by then we had a fairly large number of clients and were turning over a million a year. I would say we properly focused on Commusoft in 2011/2012 – that was the year we decided to completely rewrite our product base, which was expensive and arduous, but so, so worth it. We launched our re-written product in 2016 and our growth since then has been pretty astonishing: we’ve more than doubled in size to 54 talented startup employees, and we expect to add another 50% to head count this year. We also opened an office in Chicago last September – so have started expanding overseas. There’s so much potential to grow the business and we’re in a great position: bootstrapped and turning a profit!

As for what the future holds, we’re doing a couple of things. We’re firstly trying to align more of our team in one direction, which is especially important given the number of people that will join the company this year. We’re doing this by defining and redefining our mission and values.

We’re also looking to expand our US operations. It’s a new market and new team, so it’s a great learning opportunity – like building another new startup altogether, but bringing to bear the lessons we’ve learnt already. We’re trying to figure out how to best serve our US clients, and grow our client base. In the UK, our work in 2020 is all about scale. We’re looking to bring on as many new clients as possible and we’re seeing our product develop even further. We have companies that have grown with our business and don’t want them to outgrow us! As such, we’re reinvesting in engineering to make sure our product can grow and develop with our clients.

What do you look for in a prospective employee?

It entirely depends on the role. However, attitude is probably number one and this is really hard to gauge in an interview. When the interview is only an hour long, you have to glean as much as you can, but even then you might not get the full picture. I firmly believe that most people can be taught anything, providing they have the right attitude – so turn up enthusiastic, having done a lot of research into Commusoft – and you’ll do well here. However, I do think experience is fairly important as well. If you’re new to your career, or new to the natural demands of a startup job in general, you probably don’t know what you want yet, so it’s more ambiguous whether you will enjoy the role. For example, client services can be one of the toughest roles. You have to deal with clients all day, every day, and they can be quite difficult at times. If you have experience in this role, you’re more likely to enjoy it.

We also look for people that are personable. We do the classic litmus test of “could I stand to be stranded in an airport with you?” – if the answer is yes, then you’d be a good fit for Commusoft. Additionally, we really value diversity. Our leadership team is 50/50 men/women and our whole company is almost 50% female – something we’d recommend every startup (and in fact every company) try and pursue. We also have people from all over the world working in our office.

Do you have any advice for people thinking about founding their own startup but currently unsure?

I think if you’re starting out with the intention to ‘found your own startup’ – you’re already on the wrong foot. Startups are not glamorous and you really do get your hands dirty, especially in the beginning. I once had to delete 25,000 records one at a time to resolve a problem, which was laborious but necessary. There was no one else but me who could do it.

Because it’s not glamorous, you have to be passionate about what you’re doing. When I started out, I liked coding and the product. Commusoft was a project of sorts that I put time and effort into because I loved it. It was only after I had developed it a bit that I thought maybe other people would be interested in it. It became a business a few years later and the rest is history.

If you don’t love it, then it’s going to be tough to stick with it. The first few years can be really difficult and you’ll likely make little money. If I told you you were going to make £50 a week doing it for a year, would you still pursue it? If you can do something for free and love it, only then should you start it!

Startup To Watch: Antler

Startup To Watch: Antler

This week, we’re interviewing Antoine Poirson, a Partner at Antler – a startup generator and early-stage VC that enables the world’s most exceptional people to build global businesses from the ground up. Antler is expanding fast across the globe, building a startup community and on the hunt for prospective founders!

Hi Antoine! What would you say Antler’s mission is?

To enable highly talented individuals to get started on the entrepreneurial route or their next startup journey. We believe that there are three barriers to successful entrepreneurship: (1) building the right founding team, (2) figuring out the right idea and validating it and (3) accessing capital. We break these barriers to entrepreneurship and as a result help entrepreneurs succeed and build more solid businesses.

We provide our prospective founders with a pretty structured 6 month startup generator program. In the first 10 weeks, founders will need to be on location in our offices as this is when teams are formed and ideas and businesses are created and built. By carefully selecting a diverse group of people for our programs, we help budding entrepreneurs find the right co-founder with complementary skills and different experiences to their own. We then help them mature their ideas to the point that they become investable. Finally, we provide the capital and invest early on. Alongside our hands on support and strong network, this capital helps founders build an MVP, develop their product/service offering, and get their company to a Seed stage. Beyond this, we help them raise more capital from external investors.

You guys have grown a lot over the past few years! What’s next for Antler in the UK and globally?

We’ve officially set up and launched the first cohort of budding co-founders and we’re recruiting for the next London cohort, which is starting in February 2020. Every 6 months we look for a new cohort of 80 to 100 exceptional people and around 15-20 startups are born from this.

We also plan to expand our reach, geographically, outside of the capital. London has been our primary UK focus so far for our recruitment activities, but we want to explore other regions such as Manchester, Leeds, Bristol and Edinburgh. Not only is there huge potential there, but we want to build a stronger network within the UK startup community. This is very important to us.

We’re also going to focus on developing our current investments. We have a lot of prominent angels and top VCs in our network, which is really helpful for the entrepreneurs joining the Antler community. Expect to see our startups growing fast and further developing their business proposition.

Outside of the UK meanwhile, Antler is expanding! We’re currently live in 8 locations across the globe and will be launching in 5 more in 2020 so people can apply to join in other regions too (Singapore, New York, Amsterdam, Oslo, Stockholm, Sydney, Nairobi). We are building a global Antler community where founders can leverage a worldwide network of investors and advisers.

You’re looking for aspiring entrepreneurs to join your startup generator programme, why should they apply?

They should apply if they are looking to build a high potential startup in the near future with a strong co-founding team. If they want to work with the most driven, successful and ambitious individuals as co-founders and work on something that has the potential to scale globally, then our startup generator program is for them! The support, funding and global network our founders receive when they join the Antler community should be a core motivation for prospective applicants.

What do you look for in prospective founders?

We like to work with aspiring entrepreneurs that have experience: on average our founders have 8-10 years working experience. We also look for proof: proof of greatness, proof of perseverance and proof of drive. We want people who are self-starters and don’t need to be pushed to deliver something. They should always be on their toes and constantly think of ways to do things better, bigger and faster.

We also look for people with a “spike”. In other words, something that they’re exceptionally good at. This could be a technical skill, deep sector knowledge, or even a soft skill. It’s something that puts them in the top 2% of the talent pool and really makes them special.

We look for tech profiles (full-stack developers, data scientists etc.) as well as business profiles (industry experts, serial entrepreneurs, operations or marketing experts etc.).

You’ve worked internationally in startups. Do you have any advice for those thinking about taking the startup leap but currently unsure about leaving the corporate world?

Just get started, it’s as simple as that. If you are currently in a job and thinking about starting a business, it seems very risky and bold. What I have observed is that you face a bit of a paralysis. You constantly think that if you get started in 6 months rather than today, you’ll have more savings and be more prepared. However, it actually doesn’t bring much value to wait. The earlier you start the more you will achieve in the future and the more likely it is that you will reach your goals. So I would encourage everyone to get started as soon as possible.

Secondly, a lot of people think that they don’t have the right idea, but the idea is almost immaterial if they find the right team. I cannot stress enough how important your founding partners are to your success. Ideas are fairly common, but what isn’t normal is when a team is able to execute on that idea. This is what separates the successful startups from the ones that fail.

And…. Antler is hiring on Work in Startups!

Tech Co-Founder

Startup To Watch: Zen Educate

Startup To Watch: Zen Educate

Here at Work In Startups, we’re on a mission to champion the best and most exciting startups in the UK. To support this, we’re starting a new blog series highlighting some of the most innovative and fast-growing startups around. Follow us as we interview startup founders across the country and find out more about their goals and ambitions, what the future holds and (for all you startup jobseekers out there looking for the inside scoop) what they look for in a prospective employee.

This week, we’re interviewing Slava Kremerman, Co-Founder and CEO of Zen Educate – a digital teacher recruitment agency that is revolutionising the way schools find supply teachers. Zen Educate has just raised £5.6m of funding in a round led by ed-tech VC Brighteye Ventures and is growing fast, hiring equally as fast and radically disrupting the education staffing sector.

Hi Slava! What would you say Zen Educate’s mission is?

Our mission is to improve the education system. Zen Educate is an accredited social enterprise, so it’s core to who we are. All schools need teachers and traditionally if a teacher is away, they call a recruitment agent. This is poor value for money and inefficient. We help schools cut out the middleman by providing an online platform for their hiring needs. This helps them save time and money, and it also helps teachers take back control, as they know where and when they can work in advance, and benefit from exceptional support and great rates.

Your growth over the past few years has been pretty astonishing. What does 2020 hold in store for Zen Educate?

As you’ve mentioned, we’ve just raised £5.6m in funding from Brighteye Ventures, an EdTech focused European VC, and this comes off the back of significant business growth. We’re tripling as a business year over year and hiring more people as a result. 6 months ago, we were a team of 20 and now we’re a team of 50 – which is an exciting place to be.

We currently work with over 4,000 teachers in Greater London and Manchester, not to mention numerous schools, and there’s definitely a lot of room to grow in these areas. We’re also launching in Birmingham in Q1 of 2020, which we’re looking forward to. Beyond the UK, inefficiencies in education staffing exist all over the world and few companies are poised to do something about this. A few education staffing platforms are having a lot of success in the US, but this business model has yet to reach continental Europe, Asia and Africa. As such, there are enormous global opportunities for Zen Educate.

What do you look for in an employee?

Value fit is key. Without giving too much away, we’re very deliberate about our hiring process and hire people who closely align with Zen Educate’s values.

We look for three main things:

People that care about what we do – if the mission inspires you, that’s a big reason to join
People that act like owners who thrive on autonomy
People that push themselves to be better by consistently choosing greatness over comfort

Do you have any advice for young people just starting their careers?

Life is short and fleeting, so work on stuff that means something to you. Even if this means changing your career drastically, do it. Life is too short to not be doing work that matters to you.

Do you have any advice for those thinking about founding their own startup but currently unsure?

Do it x1,000,000. You want to tell your grandkids about the person you became, not the person you could have been, so don’t wait! Once you decide to take the leap, speak to people and get advice. Find successful founders and suck up information from them like a sponge. Founders love helping other Founders. This will help you navigate challenges and opportunities that come your way.

On a personal note, before co-founding Zen Educate, I worked at Nutmeg – a very successful startup – for a few years. I went on that journey from the small team to a big team and learnt a lot in the process. Going on a journey with another company in the early stages is a great way to learn what it takes to build a successful company.

And…. Zen Educate is Hiring!

Head of Marketing

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