Pros
1. High levels of responsibility over various verticals in the business, space to take complete ownership and accountability and create a direct impact on the company’s success. Be a part of the “Core Team” 2. The founder carefully maintains an informal and somewhat relaxed ambience. 3. You have complete freedom to explore the depth of your working limits. 4. Experience “Start Up Culture” 5. Opportunity to get “Mentored”
Cons
1. You will be managing multiple roles and all the work accompanying them. However, you will be expected to deliver immediate results that do not align with the actual feasibility of what one person can achieve (deliver 3x work in 1x time, regardless of the situation). Since you may have joined in embodying the core team, that title will be dangled in front of you while you are forced to take on more work than you physically can since this is a “performance-based” position. 2. Absolutely no concept of boundaries. Personal comments will be made behind your back, not by your team members but by upper management. You are expected to have only “productive conversation” even during lunch. Communication among team members is expected to remain strictly professional even during non-working hours. Extreme control will be very subtly exerted in a manner where you don’t have the option to say no. Manipulative behaviour will be exhibited that will make you feel icky and bad about yourself when the fault does not lie with you. 3. Not only is there no overtime clause in the joining contract, but upper management will definitely enable and expect you to stay back. Casual threats masked with a smile may mention their disinterest in how you get the work done as long as it is before the deadline, even outright stating that you “will have to” come to the office on Sunday if the deadline is not met. (Deadlines are your bible and will be set unrealistically despite your requests to reconsider. Deadlines will also change daily depending on Upper management’s whims and fancy.) 4. You will be reminded constantly that the company is bootstrapped and that money is precious, so every single day, YOU need to prove your worth. Comments like “This is not what I’m paying you to do”, “Why are you asking me? I am paying you to do this” and my personal favourite, “If you want to leave, you are free to, I find every person brings something new to the table so I have no problem letting you go”. 5. This was the biggest farce I have seen any working professional use to get what they want and to satisfy their own ego. You will be micromanaged, manipulated, and coerced into doing things you do not want to. Upper management will enforce their own ideologies and operating preferences onto you while mentioning how you need to “make it your own”. I and my teammate were constantly told how we were expected to become his “clones”. Upper management also mentioned how they prefer to hire women over men because men “do not take work seriously” (read: cannot be manipulated as easily into overtime and overwork) and “have attitudes” (read: stand up for themselves).