18 Months at My First Startup

Calling it fast-paced wouldn’t do it justice.

I have always found metaphors to be the best way to describe things that are hard to describe.

The only thing I can compare working at a startup to is running a marathon.

You do not run a successful marathon through natural talent, God-given ability, or by wearing the most expensive running attire. You run a successful race through preparation, pace, and grit.

One does not succeed at startups through natural talent, God-given ability, or being able to appear more successful than they are. One succeeds at startups through preparation, pace, and grit.

I have spent the last 18 months having the pleasure of helping the team at joinlearners.com work towards making learning more accessible for anyone interested in research, design, or product. I’ve had the chance to hold the titles of UX Researcher and Associate Product Manager. I have also had opportunities to

• Help ship joinlearners.com, I lead generative research to help transition from our in-person conference format to our current business model (SAAS ed-tech company)
• Lead community initiatives at joinlearners.com, including hosting the weekly podcast, hosting community programming events, and collaborating with external organizations
• Be an Associate Product Manager and handle sponsorships and advertising, provided monthly metrics and consultation to our sponsors on their ad performance
• Collected and analyzed compensation data from thousands of UX Researchers so we could publish a report and website to help dozens of Researchers negotiate raises of tens of thousands of dollars (UXR Salary Report)
• Do a talk on the aforementioned report
• Do a research project for the City of Toronto’s Combating Anti-Black Racism initiative
• Do business development and outreach to help build the Learners community

I’ll stop before this turns into a listicle.

In short, I have had the opportunity to wear many hats. I have been so lucky to learn so much about research, product, marketing and to put it simply, just being a craftsperson. This has been the greatest opportunity in learning how to ship something that people actually use.

My biggest takeaways from working at Learners have been

• Have strategic foresight, try to think about what your blue skies and rainy days could be like, and prepare for the rainy days (preparation)
• Have a timeline, have checkpoints, and have a plan. I learned a lot about the value of compound interest and be at least 1% better every day as well as how to get a project from an idea into an actual(pace)
• Buckle down and be ready for things to be hard, I have failed many times and I’ve realized it’s best to get it out of the way and keep pushing (grit)
• Be flexible! Anything can happen, being on your toes, agile and flexible to change are the most important things when it comes to success and maintaining your own sanity.

In addition to learning all of these great hands-on skills, I was able to develop my soft skills with one of the most hardworking and creative groups I’ve ever been a part of. I learned how to empathize and effectively collaborate with a high-impact cross-functional team.

To get the most out of teamwork you need high trust and accountability, everyone has to be united towards one goal and everyone has to be committed to making incremental steps towards that goal. When shipping anything the value of incremental steps can not be stressed enough, breaking your goals down into small milestones is key.

My time at Learners was a great experience for me because I was able to ship real products that people actually used, I got to work with a team of great people who taught me a lot about community and teamwork, and I got exposed to different roles and skillsets. I went into this being very interested in UX and research, but I’ve developed a serious appreciation and interest in other disciplines like design, marketing, and product.

I’m so grateful for everything I’ve been able to be a part of and I wish Learners all the best in their future endeavors.

I’m looking forward to my next opportunity to contribute to something bigger than myself. I want to work on projects that make a real-world impact and help people’s everyday experiences become a bit more pleasant, accessible, or simple. I’m really interested in roles in UX Research or Product Management, if you’d like to connect here’s my LinkedIn and Twitter.

-Kyle