Some things I learnt during my time working as tech employee #1 at a startup.

I have been reflecting on my learnings from the past few years of working at previous startups. As well as being incredible experiences, there were also a lot of learnings. Finding our product market fit was tricky in what became a difficult market and we naturally made a few wrong turns before ultimately ending up in a better place. But I've learnt and grown so much from the role - a smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.

Every startup journey has its unique challenges and victories - these are some universal lessons I've picked up along the way. In no particular order, here are some of my thoughts:

• How will your experience enable people to tell stories? - To have a successful product, you need to have people talking about it. So take a step back and think about how a user will feel using the product and who they will want to tell about it. It can really help focus the mind on what the product should be in the first place.

• Be focused - Trying to do lots of things quickly at the same time leads to a poor product, so managing ambition is key. You're better off doing one thing really well. It can be difficult to kill features, but it's really important to do as it'll add drag to every decision and every pivot.

• Indulge one client - Start with a single client and work with them until they love your product. Get to the point where they can't live without your product and then start to expand. Lots of clients make lots of noise, and then once you have a mass of clients it's a lot harder to change and pivot.

• Make sure you are aligned on what success is - What does a successful business look like? Some businesses thrive on daily active users, whilst others just need a few power users who can't live without your product. Make sure the data your tracking and reporting on reflects these success metrics.

• Make it easy - Once you have your product market fit adding extra benefit can be hard. Sometimes the best way to benefit users is to make things easier to use. How can you cut down the time it takes for a user to go from point A to point B? Make it as simple as possible to use, reduce the possibility of drop-off.

• No is a decision, yes is a responsibility - It can be hard to say no, but if you never say no you will inevitably find yourself in situations you regret. You rarely regret saying no. So think about the things you do want to say yes to - what's going to make the most impact? And remember, yes leads to extra work, and it may not be the right time to do that work.

• Size doesn't matter - The bigger your company, the more impressive you sound - but working with large amounts of people adds challenges. Startups are meant to be small and nimble - so avoid huge growth spurts early on, and certainly add hires slowly and steadily. You likely need less people than you think.

• Don't break the flow - I found I was working far better in the early hours of the evening - as that's when I could actually focus my job without distractions. Interruptions break your concentration, they stop you doing the job you need to do. I noticed that our velocity was dropping, so we agreed to move as many meetings as we could to the mornings so developers had their afternoons free. I also looked at what meetings could be handled asynchronously instead - for example, doing some stand-ups as Slack messages or recording Looms of things you need people to watch but not participate in means they can fit them around their work day.

• Everyone contributes - When you have a small team, you need contributors not delegators - including the leaders. Personally, I'm not afraid to get stuck in with whatever job needs doing - even if it isn't my job at all. It helps you understand the hires you will need to eventually make as you are doing jobs you will one day need to hire for. Delegators often love meetings as that's where they feel important - and their meetings have a habit of spawning more meetings - which cause even more interruptions.

• Trust your gut... and the data - Often your gut is right, and if you love your product your audience will also love it. But - if the data is overwhelming, then kicking off a quick experiment to explore alternatives is totally worth the damage to your ego.