An essay by John Melonakos
Entrepreneurial Learning On-The-Fly
One of my favorite parts of working with startups is the opportunity to learn so many things on-the-fly. Here are ways that learning on-the-fly happens in a startup:
- engineers comfortable with a particular technology need to learn something new to complete a project
- sales or marketing people need to learn website design and maintenance (and they can do a great job at it)
- engineers have to sell
- young non-managers have to become managers, including hiring older professionals such as lawyers and accountants
- learning the venture money business, dealing with angels, VCs, or incubators
- anyone having to learn legal, real estate, insurance, or all the trappings of running a business
- everyone learning the fundamentals of building, selling and becoming productive
A few days ago, I mentioned that there are new leaders joining our team. These new team members will have to do a lot of entrepreneurial learning on-the-fly. Their success or failure will largely depend upon how quickly they are able to adapt themselves to the ground realities of entrepreneurship.
What are other ways learning on-the-fly occurs in startups?
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