Getting paid less working in a startup

and why I am happy with it

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

Introduction

Money isn’t everything

Or is it? I guess everyone once heard this saying or something similar. But is it really true? I think if we consider the whole life it’s definitely true. Family and friends are most important. And in general living for something you enjoy and care about is something everyone aims for.

But let’s look at the money aspect of happiness.
If you don’t have excessive luck or were born rich you have to work for money. In most cases this will be part of your life for round about 40 years.

So it does not make sense to only work the whole day and never really live your life. The 40 years would be just gone. And these years are even more valuable because you are young. So that’s not really an option.

But if we consider the time we are investing to work isn’t it useful to pick the most lucrative job you can get? I answered this question for myself and will share it with you.

My Story in a nutshell

So after I finished with my education to become a “IT specialist for application development” I had to decide what to do next. There were basically two options for me.

1. Apply for some job offers in that area.
2. Be the first employee in a startup of a friend/colleague.

I already knew that they had an IT-expert in the founders team so I could try myself out and learn a lot from him hopefully. And even if the startup would fail I could still stick to the other option and apply for some other job. Since the job market for developers is pretty good I had no doubt that I would find a good alternative.

In addition working for a large company would not have appealed to me at the time (and still wouldn’t). There would be so much colleagues and work that I would not like. I guess most of the time I would do pretty boring stuff.

In most companies the processes take a long time and to change something in it can take years. Not something I was up for…

So I decided to give the startup a try. I signed the contract and I was ready to go. *Yippie*

Photo by Andre Hunter on Unsplash

At first everything was really uncoordinated in the startup. No wonder since we were only five people trying to work on IoT Devices as a full service provider for big companies. Most of the time I worked together with the IT-expert and I was greatly benefitting from that. I learned so much new things in such a short time. It was fascinating for me.

Even though we were all working a lot we had a lot of fun, learned a lot and created a good business value. Honestly I had nothing to complain about. Working felt more like being on a school trip than actually working.

Since today it basically did not change, the company grow a lot and currently we are about 15 people that are working together. So we have to schedule a lot more meetings but I am still coding a lot and I am still working on new technologies and applications to boost the company to the next level.

There is such a good spirit in the team that it still does not seem to be “real” work for me.

So it often happens that I do stuff for the work in my free time just because I like to do so.

Even in the current pandemic situation the feeling is awesome. We talk, laugh and work a lot together even though we can’t really meet each other.

So to be honest I never really thought about quitting my current job for something else. I know I get paid less than in other big companies but the social factor and the fact that I love the work are way more important to me.

Surely at a certain point in life you need more money but hopefully then the company has grown and I can get a higher salary while still enjoying the benefits of a startup atmosphere.

Conclusion

My major takeaway from the last years is that money really isn’t everything. For me a pleasant and productive working environment is also very important. I would not be happier if I would double my income but hate my job.

It’s really important for me is to see the purpose of my work and that I am progressing to reach certain goals. I would love to make the world a little bit better with what I am doing. This creates a lot of motivation and fun for me.

I like to identify myself with my work and want to be proud of what I do.

And I guess this something I should keep up because most of us are using at least half of their awake time to work on/for something.

Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash

I like to work to create a real world impact and that’s what I think I do. And having fun on the road is a great perk that I don’t want to miss.

It’s better to be passionate about projects than just counting the days until retirement. And if you also have a good salary, everything is great. At least that’s my opinion.

I hope some of you guys can benefit from my story. What do you think about this topic? I would love to get some responses from you.