5+ benefits of having a corporate background when founding a startup

I used to be a corporate girl.

I worked in various strategy, business development, and business planning jobs in large corporations, namely Nokia and Microsoft. After spending 12 years of my life in these companies, I had a problem. I knew that I needed to do something totally different. But looking at my CV, no one believed I could survive in a startup or small company environment.  

Startup entrepreneurs stereotypically believe that corporations are slow and bureaucratic. That life is easy there and your salary is just handed to you after you create some PowerPoint slides. When I was discussing with multiple VCs, my corporate background was considered a joke (at best) or a big liability (at worst). 

Luckily I didn’t believe the naysayers. Instead, I marched on and started a company. And not only did I survive the founder's life, but I was also successful in it. And note: this was not _despite_ my corporate background but _partially because_ of my corporate background. 

I learned to tell about my corporate history with humor, making it an interesting part of my personal narrative of becoming the startup founder I was. But I still felt that the true benefits of having a corporate background in the startup world are not widely understood.   

These are the many benefits I experienced in having a corporate background when founding a startup: 

#1 I knew our customers - because I had been one of them

The fundamental key to success in any business is to know your customer extremely well and therefore be able to solve their problem better than your competition. 

When we started a B2B business targeted at enterprise buyers, we knew we would talk their language and understand their priorities - because we had been in their shoes just a few months earlier. Our customers said this to me several times: “I know that you understand me. And I’m confident that you are on my side.” 

#2 I had deep subject matter expertise

Deep subject matter expertise can be created in many ways, but one option is to learn it from top-notch peers in a corporate environment. Corporates do many things very well. They are big because they are good at something.

Before founding our startup, we had been working on solving the same problem in corporations for years, improving the solution over time. Once we started our startup, we had years of collective knowledge about the subject matter. And as we had collected this know-how in respected tech companies, we had high confidence that we had learned something useful that we could productize. 

#3 I had a network of prospects in right-sized companies

Finding the very first enterprise customer is always difficult before the startup has any references or success stories. Thanks to our corporate background, we had ex-colleagues in some relevant prospect companies, who knew our reputations and considered working with us a possibility. 

If one has only worked in a small company bubble, there is a significant likelihood that their network does not help find the critically important first reference customers.

#4 I knew how corporations operate

People who are not used to dealing with corporates, often get frustrated because of how those companies work. Why does the procurement department need to get involved? Why is decision-making so complex and hard to understand? How is it possible that a choice is not made based on objective assessment, but there is internal politics involved?

We, who have first-hand experience of working in corporates, have more patience with several layers of decision-makers, corporate politics, etc. We also have the means to tackle the related issues. Convincing your first contact point is seldom enough. You need to help them convince a large group of other stakeholders.  

# 5 I had good benchmarks for many business practices 

Some startups are managed extremely chaotically. Some leaders have never experienced a well-planned and managed corporate machine. As different as corporates and startups are, good governance and a systematic approach to managing things, running support functions, helping people if they go through hardships, etc. is typically in place in large corporations. There are many good practices we can just repeat in a small company without spending too much time rethinking them. Everything cannot be copied. But some things can.   

Plus: Not all corporate jobs are highly specialized 

One of the biggest differences between working in a small company vs. a large corporation is the level of specialization one builds. In typical corporate roles, you can build deep expertise in a very particular niche. In small companies (especially in early-stage founder-led companies) one needs to be somewhat generalist to succeed. The technical founder typically needs to be comfortable with product management as well. The CEO needs to handle a variety of business priorities such as sales, marketing, financing, etc. until the point the company can afford to recruit subject matter experts. And still, even after the point when the Sales VP has been recruited, there are new challenges to tackle every week. A leader in a startup needs to endorse and enjoy learning new things and solving new problems all the time. 

Luckily, not all corporate roles are highly specialized. For instance, I worked in various business-related generalist roles, where the work consisted of project-driven problem-solving. These roles included strategy, business development, operational development, and business planning. In these types of roles, there is a new challenge to solve every month. One needs to network with a new set of stakeholders, learn to communicate with a new executive, learn a new part of the business and work one’s way through building a recommendation and plan on solving the issue. 

These jobs provided me with a versatile set of tools and confidence in tackling new problems and new subject matters constantly. While the practical challenges in a small company are very different, I know that with my systematic approach to dealing with any type of question I can solve almost any challenge - no matter how surprising. 

If you are a corporate person dreaming of an entrepreneurial path, just accept the challenge

It will be difficult. And there is a high likelihood of failure. But you’ll learn a new set of skills and no matter what the result, the journey is going to be very rewarding. And you certainly have some unique background and perspective you can benefit from when you build your startup.

#startup #leadership #growth #customercentricity