Life at a Startup: Level Eight

This is Part 8 of a weekly series on my growth and development at a software startup in Austin Texas. Click here to view the full series or start at Level 1.

“We’ve needed you on our team for a long time”

“Gotta say, you’ve managed to get way more meetings with customers than any other account manager we’ve had”

The first from the COO of my company, the other from the head of our support team. These both meant a ton to me so I thought I would share.

Level Eight Stats

Weapons gained:

• Experience + 4: I still have a lot to learn but I’ve realized how far I’ve come in knowing our system since the first day I started work. I’ve been doing almost all of my meetings by myself now and am able to answer most questions from customers. This only happens because I’ve become familiar enough with our system and customers to know how to answer.

• Connections + 4: Today was a very fruitful day in making connections. I basically went to the park and joined a bunch of random games like Spikeball, Frisbee, and Volleyball and got to know the people I was playing with. I’ve learned pretty well how to fit into most groups, regardless of the variation in personalities or overall vibe. I had a lot of fun meeting people as I always do and look forward to keeping up with a couple of them.

• Ability + 2: I didn’t learn anything crazy this week, however, I would say because of the mass amount of meetings and phone calls I’ve been having I’ve become a lot better over the phone. 

• Knowledge + 2: Once again, nothing crazy here beside the usual knowledge of my company and the ins and outs of it.

• Discipline + 10: I’ve introduced consistent workouts into my morning routine and I can tell it’s helping me focus better during the day and have more energy. Even after only a week or two, I can already tell it’s helping. I’m also starting to get pretty good about accomplishing the important things at the beginning of my work day and spacing out the rest of my work into the rest of the day. It’s working extremely well.
• Organization + 6: Brought about a pretty critical and serious meeting with one of our biggest customers. I was the mediator for the call and laid out the meeting outline to everyone before the call. I made sure of the things that needed to be talked about and referred them to one of my coworkers on the call who might have more insight than myself when I wasn’t sure of something. Some very successful calls have come about due to having organization and follow-up with them
• Strength – 4: Boom. This week has been lots of pushups and situps and Ultimate and swimming and so on. It’s been a very full week of strengthening myself but it’s been great!  

Kills: At the end of last week I was told to try and get a meeting with one of our biggest customers. I communicated with the practice immediately and I had a meeting scheduled within my first few minutes of work on Monday.

Deaths: Probably going to be losing a customer for the first time since they were on my watch. It’s part of the job but still annoying for me to see.

Outside the Game

Averaging 6 hours a night of sleep, so naturally, I am more tired than I should be right now.

Had a random Spikeball, Ultimate frisbee, and Volleyball game all day today with a bunch of random humans

Final Takeaways

Honestly not too much to add to all of this. Probably simply that I need to work on more sleep and more consistency in that. I’ve started some new routines and can’t wait to see how these are going to play into my life professionally and personally.

Let’s go!