My Key Learnings in my First 90 days at Borneo

Vishal — 4/6/2023 — 3 Min Read

I found it surprising that after nearly 6+ years working exclusively with startups in the B2B and B2C space; I still did not have my own Medium account. Well, it is never too late.

So why now?

When I wrote this post on Linkedin, the first advice one of my well-wishers at Borneo gave me was to start documenting my learnings in a place where it could help a larger audience, and here I am on Medium. (forgive the cringe)

I thought it would be even more helpful if I structured the same learnings from LinkedIn to Medium and provided my readers with key takeaways from this post.

TL;DR

Don't neglect what you already have

Leverage Industry Experience; they don't come that easy

Hyper Focus on one thing at a time and Ship it Fast

Be Transparent and Honest about your thoughts

Don't neglect what you already have

Often when we join as managers in any startup, we feel a need to rattle things up, hire new people, and create unique content. But I realized the key to a successful first three months is to take stock of what the organization already has. The founding team must have been through the same thought process that you are going through now and acted the same way.

While Creating is key, repurposing is even more vital. Saves Time, Saves Effort.

As a content / Product Marketing person, it is normal for you to feel guilty when repurposing the existing content instead of creating new ones. Embrace it.

Leverage Industry Experience; they don't come that easy

Decades of Security Practitioner experience, especially on the vendor side in cybersecurity across giant-size organizations, don't come by that easily. When you leverage that, you understand most of your understanding of the industry changes, and you start writing better; you start thinking differently more from the customers' lens.

Hyper Focus on one thing at a time and Ship it Fast

When we start doing multiple things at a time, we do everything 20 to 30% and end up doing nothing completely.

So instead, focus on one thing, complete it 100%, and ship it to the customer. Because unless you ship it, you won't know if it works. Thank you, Prithvi Rai for this learning.

Be Transparent and Honest about your thoughts

Would the people in the organization be receptive to your feedback since you are new? Do you know the easiest way to know that? Just ask them directly. You will be surprised to know many are actually looking for feedback / or have solid customer feedback as to why they built something the way they did. Having non-work and life conversations is vital to being a sane human in dynamic, fast-paced workplaces.