Lockdown Stealing Your Motivation? How To Get Back In The Game!

While some people might be loving life in lockdown there are more that are finding it increasingly hard to get by. We are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, which is why its important to keep our spirits high. The following are some general tips that have helped us get through […]

Lockdown Stealing Your Motivation? How To Get Back In The Game!

Fresh air and exercise

There are so many ways we can keep active during this time, from running, downloading one of the many latest fitness apps and joining a class suitable for you, vigorous cleaning or even just setting the intention to complete 10,000 steps a day if nothing else. By doing so, we unleash a magnitude of benefits from increased productivity, improved memory, more energy and more access to dopamine and serotonin – and who doesn’t want to release more happy hormones!

Take breaks

Want to improve your well-being, productivity and boost your performance? Remembering to take breaks might just do that. Back at the office, those quick breaks would happen naturally. Quick chats with colleagues at the watercooler, in the hallway between meetings or grabbing a coffee. It might not feel quite the same in our home offices, but working flat out isn’t sustainable and may send you into a physical and emotional burnout. Try to not let your breaks involve aimlessly scrolling on your phone but rather eat lunch away from your laptop, practice some self-care by doing some mindfulness meditation, prep your dinner or do some washing!

Stay social & keep in touch

Not being able to leave the house to meet friends and co-workers can have serious effects on your mental state. Meeting up frequently with your co-workers digitally is great for multiple reasons, you get the social aspect of those quick chats. In addition, it’s a lot faster and more effective than messaging back and forth. We at Work In Startups meet up twice a week, on Mondays we discuss what is happening during the week and on Fridays what we achieved that week and in between we have a couple short informal coffee chats. Top tip: Don’t be hiding, turn on your camera! Actually seeing the person you are talking to has a huge effect, a large part of our communication is nonverbal so the camera is important.

Remember to disconnect at the end of your working day!

Now we’re not experts, but if you follow the points above, your productivity and motivation levels should improve. Therefore, when it’s the end of your working day, you can happily log off and switch off! This is possibly the most important point of this entire post! It’s so easy to either work longer or keep logging on to check your emails or some other information you have been waiting on. This leads to you never properly disconnecting and getting the rest you need. Burnout is a real threat in most industries, so when you log off make sure you are off. This can be by not going into your office space during non-office hours, or just putting your laptop out of sight and turning off notifications.

Startup To Watch: CausaLens

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 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!

Time to Jump Ship? 5 Signs You Need to Leave Your Job (and join a Startup!)

You’re underpaid / under-incentivised Money is definitely not the be all and end all of life…. but who’s kidding, you’ve got bills to pay. Moreover, you deserve adequate compensation for all the hard work you’ve been putting in. It’s difficult to put your all into a job when you’re not being paid adequately or your […]

Time to Jump Ship? 5 Signs You Need to Leave Your Job (and join a Startup!)

You’re underpaid / under-incentivised

Money is definitely not the be all and end all of life…. but who’s kidding, you’ve got bills to pay. Moreover, you deserve adequate compensation for all the hard work you’ve been putting in. It’s difficult to put your all into a job when you’re not being paid adequately or your salary has stagnated, particularly when you think you deserve to be paid more (and if you’re not sure, it’s fairly easy to check!). Feeling like you’re underpaid relative to peers is clearly a pretty big motivation-killer. So if you find yourself in this situation and you can’t seem to resolve the conversation through an open conversation with your manager, then nobody will blame you for looking elsewhere. Hopefully your next job will meet your salary needs, or at least give you some stock / equity options if you join a progressive startup.

You’re not learning and developing

Your daily routine has become monotonous and, despite your very best efforts to get stuck in with interesting projects, you’re not really learning anything new. When this happens, it might be time to move on. If you feel stagnant, uninspired and unmotivated, look for opportunities that will help you grow and develop. This is especially important given the changing nature of the job market. In 25 years time, experts have estimated that around 47% of current jobs won’t exist, which suggests that humans will need to be more agile and adaptable than ever before. As such, it’s important to prioritise learning and development and move on from places that don’t support your growth. Jobs in startups, where you’ll often be forced to wear many hats, can certainly offer learning opportunities if you’re willing to make the move!

Negative Team Dynamics (NTD)

Some workplaces are incredibly toxic. Is your workplace characterised by politics, lack of accountability, aggression, competition and hostility? If so, then it might be time to move on. If you feel genuinely uncomfortable, left out and are sick and tired of the poisonous vibe… then it can be difficult to get out of bed in the morning and you might lose motivation and energy. In these instances, you should talk to the HR team before you make any rash decisions. If nothing is done to address the situation… it may be time to leave for somewhere more inclusive. Unfortunately startups can be just as prone to this as larger corporates, so do your research before you join a new team!

The Ship Is Sinking

Are you on the Titanic? Have you just hit an iceberg? If so, it may be time to pack up ship (pun intended) and take the first lifeboat out of there. If your company has been going through an extended period of poor performance, poor management and poor morale, it may be time for you to leave your job. Nothing’s worse than staying at a company that’s being driven into the ground and/or that you believe has terrible prospects. Jump ship while you can and join a team that more readily inspires you!

NB: most businesses (and especially ambitious startups!) go through difficult periods, so don’t just leave at the slightest whiff of trouble. Assess whether the situation is truly dire and go from there, even if it means just reaching out to your network and seeing what jobs are available.

You’re just generally unhappy in your job

Do you go to bed every night dreading getting up in the morning? Is Sunday evening the worst part of your week because you know you have 5 days of work ahead of you? If so, you should immediately start looking for a new job. At the end of the day, your health and happiness are the most important things. Period. If your job is making you genuinely unhappy and depressed, serious changes need to be made and you can’t be complacent. Perhaps try and get to the root of your unhappiness and see if your work can make adjustments to suit your needs. This is a great first step to explore whether the situation is salvageable – just don’t suffer in silence! And do remember, it’s important to reflect back on the positives of your previous employer when you start interviewing elsewhere and have to explain your move rationale – even if it’s really got you down, try and put a positive spin on your job as no hiring manager wants to hire in someone who seems overly negative!

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