Reviewing 6 years in Circles.Life: The tough startup questions
Celebrating 6 years in a startup is quite a feat to most, myself included. It definitely isn’t the easiest of paths to choose and many would attest to the challenges that we go through in a chaotic, fast-paced environment while trying to get maybe just about 1000 things done. But if you’ve managed to survive past 3 years in one, I’m sure you’ll pretty much relate to all the questions and answers I’m about to talk about. From small-scaled startups to sizes like ours where we’re scaling, this is the reality.
Is this tough? Hell yes.
Is this for anybody? Nope.
Worth it? I should certainly hope so.
I’m going to answer some of the tougher questions that have been posed to me recently, especially in light of my fossil-like tenure now in Circles.Life.
Q: Why are you still at Circles.Life after so long?
🍐: Honest, true to heart answer? I don’t know how I survived this long when 90% of my previous counterparts are no longer around! When people look to you as ‘the oldest member of the marketing team’, there is a certain kind of pressure to hold the weight of all the historical successes that had come before and ensure that we don’t lose it with anyone new that comes along. (And the funniest part? I was too young back then to even remember most of it, I was just doing icons and webpages! I’m kidding ;)) Honestly, I think I’m still pushing on because I don’t want to see the original essence of us going away due to our really bad handover and documentation processes (ngl)! I love this brand, for the good and the bad, and I want to see it transform and evolve into something greater without losing what we had before. The cray, the fun, the weird, the madness. Someone needs to keep it there in some form!
I guess this is why I’m so interested in not just our consumer brand, but as we expand beyond just B2C into other verticals, I want to see how we manage (or not) to retain who we are, or else, who do we eventually become?
Q: What keeps you going?
🍐: It’s not easy all the time to keep going with the same level of enthusiasm, energy, and positivity. It actually takes alot more than most people think, and this is also trained over time. This picture literally depicts the truth:
That being said, 2 key things that kept me going are the constant challenges, and the driven people. As mentioned in many posts, there’s always something new to learn, to discover, to fail at, to be better in at Circles.Life. There’s literally no short of learning opportunities if you choose to pursue them. And the best part, is that people will give you the chance to learn. You’re going to really suck at it the first few times, but by putting in the effort to learn and show that you’re trying, you’ll continue to grow in ways you won’t imagine. All you need to do is ask, and prove that you want it. At your own pace.
Another crucial point is that there is a certain caliber to the Circles.Life employees that we bring in, new and old both, that I truly appreciate. Having to work with smart and driven people all the time helps to drive your own motivation as well to keep going and pushing. And this is where the learning doesn’t stop! Startups are inherently hectic by nature, but having a great culture of driven individuals really helps to make life a tad easier.
Q: Pros and cons of Circles.Life?
🍐: This is where I can be politically correct and write down the already known knowns out there, but that’s not what this post is for. Let me provide some light on the actual pros and cons, and to shed some light to the Glassdoor (lol) reviews.
Pros
Flexibility and autonomy in projects you take is real, no one will stop you from doing too much. However, it’s on the manager and yourself to check in and ensure you’re not dying if you choose to do 20 things.
Flat hierarchy, red tape is much lesser here, so things here do move alot faster
We believe in having fun together, and this culture is being built pretty much independently by the departments (yes, we have our rahrah moments!)
The vision the company has to scale is legit, and is happening (B2C, B2B)
Work-life appreciation is starting to become better versus how it was at the start of the journey
The path for opportunities to grow is not linear, you can determine it and make your own path if you want
Cons
We’re still doing too abit too much. And when I say we, I mean everyone. The lack of focus becomes a trickle-down effect to everyone unknowingly
There is still a constant struggle between fastest time to market and quality. At some point in time, we’ve got to let the longer-term projects run so we can reap the benefits in the mid-long term.
Our engagement culture is very much department-dependent (I guess this is a double-edged sword!)
(Personal peeve) We still need to do a better job of doing right by our customers..We’re trying, but there’s so much more to do.
With autonomy of one’s growth path also comes with lack of clarity for some - progression paths for many departments are often unclear
Don’t expect too much from the office in SG :’)
Q: If you could go back in time to change 1 thing, what would that be?
🍐: Truthfully, I wish I did more design projects at Circles when I had the time to. I spent many years behind pixels but I feel that I didn’t spend enough time with it to say that I can truly own that skill end to end across all design domains. So 1 thing I’d change, might be the fact that I wouldn’t have transited to a manager this early in my career but to spend a little bit more time honing more skills.
However that being said, I think I can now continue to hone the skills through several other means :)
Q: So..What exactly do you do now?
🍐: I’m still doing everything haha! Okay, to depict it better, my role now is to ensure all touchpoints have quality content and communication alongside our great customer experience. And this consists of SEO & content development (blogs, etc), website, Marketing Operations, Web Development, CRM, Creative and Product Design. May seem like a handful, but to be honest, having this team has helped us integrate so many functions together to finally work together, and I’m really starting to see the benefits of having these teams together. We were broken down in silos previously and it was hard to get points and learnings across, but now we’re able to collectively work towards the same objective. Of course, Design is still my main mantra, but having these expansions within my purview has aided in shaping up Design further in terms of visibility and involvement :)
Q: What do you hope can be improved in the company that will make you extend your stay even more?
🍐: I just hope that many others will see better value in the many things we want to do or are pushing for, soon. Things like why certain teams are important and need to be valued more across the chain, or things that employees do actually care about that will make a difference :)
Q: What are your plans for the future?
🍐: I’ll see what comes, I won’t say for sure right now, but there are still many things to work through and challenge myself right where I am! Eventually, I want to do my own business, someday ;)
I do see why many will burn out fast in an environment like ours. One word of advice. Remember and stick to your Why. Why you’re working so damn hard in the first place. The moment you don’t feel for your Why anymore, that’s when you know it’s time. Til then, stick to it!
Thanks for sticking around and reading this 6th year sharing, I hope it helps in a way or another! #circleslife #startup #marketing #design