Companies are divided by size into three categories: startups, mid-sized companies, and large companies. At the end of the article, I will briefly compare the experience of working in the three companies. If you are interested, you can read it directly at the end of the article.


I’ve been working for nearly seven years, mostly at startups, and I’ve seen two startups fail. There are a few things that I’ve learned over the years. Entrepreneurship is really not affordable, and there are some things you really need to know:


1: The most important thing for a start-up company is to design a good product with innovation, which can really solve the pain points of users and bring positive value to the society.


2. Having a product vision is far from enough. Vision doesn’t impress investors, much less users. You need to do a deep analysis of your audience and the business model of your product. How to get the most bang for the buck with the least amount of resources.


3: With a vision and a proven business model, you still need people to make it happen. This requires building a team, and the team needs to develop its own engineering culture. This team can share the joys and sorrows with you, share the same values with the company, identify with the product, identify with the company.


4: Product design should be grounded, can really stand in the user’s point of view design products. Whether operations personnel and product managers can go into frontline users, conduct user research, and track user usage is a good idea. When designing a module, even developers find the logic complex, and immediately abandon the idea. Designers find it difficult, and users can’t accept it. No matter how complex your background algorithm is, make sure the product surface is as simple as possible.


5: The product must be stable. Imagine why people would use your product if both your product registration and login modules had occasional problems. Product features are stable, and you can also think about retention.


Finally, what a startup needs is persistence and hard work. With 120% effort to meet 100% of the user needs.


For a startup to succeed, the most important thing is to stick to the right direction. If the direction is wrong, no amount of resources will matter. If you want to go North, it’s NB. If you want to go South, it’s SB.


A small company:

Most small companies are startups, so they have a very unique “entrepreneurial mindset.”

This means focusing on fast growth and doing whatever it takes to make the company profitable or achieve some other pressing goal.

In a company like this, you might have to wear multiple hats, not just code, but be flexible. In a small company, what you do can have a bigger impact, or a mixed blessing.

Small companies are usually less stable than large ones, but the potential returns are greater in the long run.

Why you want to work for a small company: You love the fast-paced, exciting environment and want to build great products and see them grow.


Medium scale:

Most companies are medium sized, and in medium sized companies, roles are clearly defined and you’re more stable.


Large companies:

Large companies tend to have a strong corporate culture and a lot of norms and processes.

For many software developers, working for a large company can be frustrating because they feel their contributions don’t matter. You may only be responsible for a small part of a larger code base.

Office politics. Big companies often have complicated political systems.