Why designations at a startup are just figments of creative thinking

‘Everyone does everything’ is the rule at most of early stage startups and what this means is that anyone can create their own designation. We see a lot of funky designations- “Chief Janitor”, “Chief Awesomeness Officer”, and many such variations cropping up. Visiting cards also have a (refreshing) sense of light heartedness and this also plays a role in making ‘working-at-a-startup’ cool (we're trying to do this via our annual event called Startup Jobs Fair)

This pretty much establishes that designations are just vague pieces of creative thinking. Now, there are a few things which need clarification to various people:

For those coming into startups from corporates 

If you’ve been hired for a specific expertise, do that, but a fledgling startup would also expect a bit more. Vision statements don’t work at startups where things need to be done, and quickly. You should be ready to get your hands dirty and contribute in a more grounded manner. You’d have the designation of a COO or a CTO but that doesn’t mean you just setup the roadmap- you also need to be involved in the process of actually doing it.

For freshers joining startups

Freshers always look for a job description that matches their aspirations but usually the JD’s turn out to be different then what they looked to be on paper. A startup job is very clear in that way- you’ll get to give everything a shot, from technology to marketing, to anything that needs to be done to run a business. You don’t join a startup with a fixed job profile in mind. Yes, you should have your strengths as your key focus but you’d pretty much be doing a lot more.

For families of entrepreneurs/anyone else who is not involved with the startup space

This is where it gets a bit touchy. Questions like “What is your designation?” “What salary slab do you fall in?” “How is appraisal done?” are asked, and there are no answers to these. A message to such questioners: Please don’t look at the designation. They’re rough estimates of what the ‘person in question’ is doing. Even if he or she is the CEO, it might involve jobs from signing cheques to sweeping the floor at the office. But they're doing it only because they're happy when they're doing it.

To conclude, for an early stage startup, it doesn't really matter but taking in the log term view, it's better to think about the designations and try to stick to it in some way because organizational structure starts taking shape as the company grows. Beyond a certain point, segmented roles become necessary and at that time, some of the frivolous designations add to the chaos that comes with growing a company.

Signing off,

Chief Blabbering Officer.