Startup Methodologies on Carrers

Empowering Your Journey: Strategies for Entrepreneurship and Career Advancement

Hey everyone, this is Eric 😄

Recently, I started reading again. I found that reading multiple books at the same time seems to be easier to finish because it doesn't feel boring focusing on just one unless it’s a really good book. One of the books I'm reading is "Million Dollar Weekend" by Noah Kagan & Tahl Raz. Noah Kagan was an early employee at Facebook and developed many important tools and platforms. Later, he started his own business and taught others how to start theirs. This book explains in simple terms how to think about entrepreneurship and how to start. Although I haven't finished it yet, some principles can be applied to careers as well.

Just Ask

When you have a new idea you want to implement or need resources, instead of overanalyzing whether others will agree, prepare your pitch and just ask. You'll never know what the response will be unless you ask. Others might reject your idea, but they might also think it's good and agree to it. They might not have thought about it or know your situation, so asking is like showing them there is another path. For job seekers, apart from applying on LinkedIn or having coffee chats, I recently saw a successful case where a designer liked a company so much. He created an analysis, case study, and proposed a new design. He compiled these with his portfolio and emailed them to the company's CEO. Although the CEO couldn't hire him due to a lack of headcount, he posted it on Twitter, which gained a lot of tractions and led to job opportunities. Whatever you want to do, just ask. Asking puts your request in front of others, letting them know what you need. You never know, maybe they need it too.

Validate Before Acting

This sounds simple but is often overlooked. In entrepreneurship, some people want to make sure that everything is in place from the start: register the company, hire employees, complete all product features, and advertise heavily — only to find out there’s no demand for the product and eventually shut down. If you can have this information from the very beginning, you can correct your direction and avoid going down the wrong path. This ties back to the first point: asking your friends or potential users if they would use your product or if they have this need. If you want to start a dog-walking business but find out your neighbors don’t need it because they work from home, you might discover they need pet care services during vacations instead. By asking, you can adjust your ideas accordingly.

Apply this principle to your career in frontend development or other fields. Try some tutorials and projects to experience it, and see what people in the field say about their experiences. This way, you can understand if the job content is something you wouldn't mind doing before investing time and money into learning. Many people realize that what they learned isn't what they wanted, which can be costly in terms of time.

Identify Pain Points

Most entrepreneurial ideas come from personal pain points, making you more motivated to solve the issue and more knowledgeable about the field, reducing the likelihood of falling into traps. However, this requires keen insight. Sometimes, people get comfortable and overlook these pain points. The same approach can apply to career development. As you advance, you may delve deeper into a specific direction. If you find a pain point in an area of interest, you might understand it better than others, and solving it could be a significant achievement for you.