What is a typical day like as an entrepreneur in technology?

to be honest an entrepreneur does not have typical day. they are all about invention. seeking opportunity, moving forward, new things, new solutions. And it is day and night.

Hi Jaden,

Great question. The day to day in a start can be quite different depending on your role and the stage of the startup.

I work at an early stage artificial venture capital funded intelligence startup. As a data scientist, I focus on researching and developing the AI that powers our product. My day to day is often quite diverse. Part of my time (~30-40%) involves reading the latest research papers in order to understand new AI models and technologies . Most of my time (50%) is spent time developing and coding AI models and features to solve various problems our customers face and running data science experiments. And about 10% of my time is spent fixing bugs and tuning our AI models.

Working for a startup is both exciting and challenging. One of the biggest challenges is continually thinking about how to create value and build some that customers will buy and use.

Unlike jobs I had in the past, I have a lot of agency and the ability to shape the strategic direction of the company. At the same I time I can be called on to do work outside of my role. It's a team sport, and often we all pitch to support work that needs to be done in order to ensure the startup stays running. All the employees, regardless of role or seniority have a say in shaping the strategy and future of the company. We're a small team (~25 people) and often the engineers, data scientist, sales people, and product folks work closely with each other. We try to share customer empathy with everyone in the startup, so that we focus on building a quality product that provides real value.

Hi Jaden,

Working at an early stage startup provides tremendous opportunity for a person to work not only in their particular area of expertise, but also learn new skills and contribute to new areas. A small team means it is likely incumbent upon the existing employees to figure out solutions to everyday problems rather than bringing in additional people and/or resources, at least in the earliest days of a company. This reality rewards those who are inquisitive, have initiative, and are able to learn quickly. That is all to say that any particular day is likely to be different than the previous or next days.

In my case, I have a legal background and am involved in worldwide expansion of our product at a medical device startup. A day may involve working on new license agreements, managing our intellectual property portfolio, or interfacing with our end users. Additionally, I work on a lot of documentation related to implementing our software in new locations. This involves writing and learning about new technical areas that may be outside of my previous experience.

In summary, working at a technology startup provides opportunity to grow your areas of competency. The very nature of a startup requires everyone to be striving for the same goal and working effectively together. It provides learning opportunities that a larger organization likely cannot. It definitely requires some risk, but the benefits outweigh those risks in my mind.

I would recommend continuing to ask questions on this platform, as well as talk to any friends you have who may work at a startup.

Best of luck.