
Ask HN: Working at digital agency company vs. startup - leeinsu
I&#x27;ve been working at the start-up for little more than three years after graduating. And had a question what would be the life in working at digital agency.
If I work at the digital agency, will I be learning less than working at start-up?
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hkarthik
Things you learn at an agency:

1) How to work with clients and help them launch new ideas.

2) How to work quickly and efficiently to launch quickly, with no real
responsibility for long term maintenance.

3) Lots of new technologies, based on what clients want and what helps you
accomplish #2 quickly.

4) A healthy network of well rounded and skilled individuals in sales, design,
and project management.

Now, here's what you won't learn at an agency:

1) How to scale fast growing systems efficiently.

2) Real systems engineering that makes things last.

3) Growth hacking techniques or anything else related to user acquisition.

4) How to hire and manage highly skilled individuals that can do all of the
above.

In short, you'll learn different skills, some complimentary, some not. I think
agency work is great for learning how to start a startup or a new venture, but
it likely won't give you the skills you need to keep a company running and
growing.

~~~
joshcrowder
This is a great list. I couldn't agree more.

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guiambros
It's hard to generalize. In the same way that not all startups are created
equal, this is even truer for digital agencies. And even different offices
within the agency network.

There's a lot of great work coming from agencies [1][2]. But there's also
several agencies that are just doing busy work, making a living by getting
basic digital production work done.

If you have an offer from a digital agency, I'd look carefully at:

1) the type of work you'll be doing (and, more specifically, which clients)

2) to whom you'll report to, and the experience of your peers

3) what this agency has done in the past, that you think would add value to
your career.

Good luck! If you need help assessing your options, feel free to drop me a
note. Email on my profile.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinder_(programming_library)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinder_\(programming_library\))

[2] [http://www.compositeframework.io/](http://www.compositeframework.io/)

EDIT: having said that, there's good things to learn on both. A startup
teaches you to be flexible, and to move fast, be lean, focus on the product.
Agencies teach you to scale things, to get the work done in teams, to work
with enterprise clients.

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petervandijck
The basic difference (and of course it depends to some degree) will likely be:

\- at a startup you learn how to make users happy.

\- at an agency you will learn how to make clients happy.

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thehulk
I think it would come down to the people you work with and the companies
themselves. In some ways you're comparing apples to oranges.

