Ask HN: Did working at a large company, help you become a better entrepreneur? - adamwdraper
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Mz
I worked at a large company and they were very competent at some things and
that really helped teach me a lot of things by osmosis that I would not have
otherwise been exposed to. They were marketing geniuses and that is something
I learned a lot about that I likely would have never studied. They also owned
their own award-winning print company, so I was exposed to world class
correspondence materials, brochures, etc on a routine basis and I think that
helped me develop an eye for some things without really trying. I know what
quality looks like that in area. I have seen many good examples.

It made it clear that I don't do well in a big bureaucracy. But it also
exposed me to world class training and awareness of public image and some
other things that have been very important for me.

I was a homemaker for a long time. Figuring out how to interact effectively
with the public did not come easily to me. I was pretty socially adept, but
what worked one-on-one did not work in more public settings and I am not sure
I would have gotten a good handle on that had I not worked at a large company
for a few years. Trying to marry skills developed during a long period of
having a very private life to goals of having higher engagement with the
public has been an uphill battle.

I really got a lot out of working for a large company, but I am unlikely to do
so again. I am very socially conservative, so I really would have been
thrilled if I had been able to climb the corporate ladder. That would have fit
well with some of my default personality traits. But it really was not working
for me. I currently do freelance work and am developing various web projects.
I would find that a lot harder to swallow had I not learned firsthand that,
no, I am not suited to climbing the corporate ladder. But having a job at a
global corporation also did up my game in important ways, probably many of
them things I would not even recognize as having come out of that experience
specifically.

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davismwfl
Basically yes. In two ways, it taught me what to avoid in business, like
having layers of management filtering facts that are needed to make informed
decisions. Along those same lines it taught me that many times that stupid ass
decision you can't understand why the Director or VP or C level made, came
because s/he was given half truths or partial information and did the best
with what they were told.

Second way is that I learned how to sell software and services to those larger
organizations. It takes a totally different sales process and knowing that
process is invaluable to getting larger sales. You learn through that process
that enterprises are no where near as price sensitive as others are, so your
pricing should reflect it as they will demand a lot from you.

~~~
adamwdraper
I think most responses here echo the fact that they learned what not to do
more than anything.

To your second point, it seems that one thing big companies do actually offer
is exposure to large scale, whether that be engineering or business practices.

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jacobianx
It helped me raise my tolerance of incompetent politicians.

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codegeek
Better entrepreneur ? Not so sure yet (recently struggling entrepreneur) but
working at a large company gave me a lot of reasons to become an entrepreneur.

~~~
adamwdraper
"gave me a lot of reasons to become an entrepreneur". I would guess that this
is how most of the HN community feels (myself included), but definitely
interested to see if anyone out there has had a different experience.

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vinayak147
At a large company it is very difficult to try new things quickly. Flat
hierarchy, smart people and great culture help but not enough to make a
drastic difference.

I have found it helpful to understand this from experience - as opposed to
theory.

Trying new things quickly is the biggest competitive advantage of an
entrepreneur. A sharp focus on maximizing this advantage does make a better
entrepreneur.

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rajnikant
An Entrepreneur needs to learn a lot, while I always believe that an
experienced person can always conduct a better business than a fresh one but
learning mostly depends on these 2 things instead of size of organisation. (1)
Your Role in organisation : you should be at the place where you get enough
exposure to learn new things (2) Your desire to learn : The person who is
happy in a 9 to 5 job can never learn the things which don't fall in his/her
JD so if you really want to become a good entrepreneur, you should be ready to
do as much work as you can do to learn new things

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apryldelancey
For me, I notice that I still have big company thinking and I think it has
served me well. While I watch others in my field struggle to grab every scrap
of work I position myself as a higher-end solution that isn't right for every
company. Because of this my clients are larger companies. That said, I have a
colleague that does what I do but has made it a commodity and is doing fine -
but - has a hard time closing larger companies. And yes, working at a large
company gave me a lot of reasons to become an entrepreneur and many examples
of how to or not to foster a successful company culture.

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elliotec
Not yet an entrepreneur (I guess I started my freelance business..), but I
feel there are certainly lessons to learn from working at a large company.

I mean, my CEO is an entrepreneur, so it seems that even just by watching some
of that person's decisions and how it trickles through the company, I can
learn what to do or not to do when I am in his position someday.

But really the people that we want answering this may be too busy running
companies to comment on HN.

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Mz
Your closing remark assumes a correlation that may not exist. It implies that
working for BigCo translates to entrepreneurial succes. This may not be true.
In fact, the data I know suggests that entrepreneurs are frequently mavericks
who can't cut it in The Establishment and that is exactly why they struck out
on their own.

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a_lifters_life
It taught me what i dont want, and often times thats more than half the
battle.

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kuro-kuris
Seeing all the things you can cut away from a process. It has taught me a lot
about user experiences in a big corp context as well.

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NumberCruncher
I don't know but lets' set up a workshop to figure it out!

