There are many great reasons to do a start-up — career advancement, (sort of) being your own boss, doing something new, creativity, etc. etc.
But I wonder if it’s really a handful of brief moments of True Wonderfulness than makes start-ups so distinct from the BigCo Fortune 500 world.
Most start-up work is more tedious than you’d get in a fancy corner office. It’s far more stressful. And probably, you won’t ever make any more money working at a start-up than a BigCo.
But there are those moments. The day of the IPO (the next day – back to business. But that one day, see Trulia above). That one huge deal, and the party after. That one time you built something in your product that was simply – bitchin’. That no one else had ever done before. The moments of true magic.
It’s those few and rare moments of True Wonderfulness that just don’t exist in VP life in the Fortune 500, I don’t think. They keep you going.
Let’s all remind each other to cherish them when they come.
