My first startup, SEO Hacker has never seen growth as it is seeing now. We are at the verge of reaching critical mass and I’m thoroughly excited because we can finally bring more to the table for everyone in the team.
It’s a sad thing that this happened on the third generation of employees.
We started SEO Hacker with a really good team. Our first employees were good people who carried on the vision with me. However, there were people – talented ones – who joined the team later on with malicious intentions.
These people were rotten in the very fibers of their character. The butt-end of all things wrong with the millennial generation (note: I’m a millennial born 1988). They joined the team with skyscraper expectations and when these were not met, started a small mutiny within the team through slander and gossip – this, in turn, snowballed into low morale, resignations, crappy output and loss of faith in the upper management.
The tragic thing is that they were actually able to influence the good eggs and turn them rotten. Perhaps because those good eggs had less willpower or dominance in character than the bad eggs. Perhaps not. In any case, it’s unfortunate that they were not able to experience the growth we are experiencing today.
So here are some thoughts and mindsets that I’m just throwing here about how things could have gone differently.
The Grass is Greener where you Water it
This is what’s really wrong with the majority of the millenial generation. Hopping from job to job hoping to land ‘the perfect one’. The problem with that is that there is no ‘perfect one’. Not in love, not in family, certainly not in work.
There are more chances of success for a person if only that person would work hard enough to improve himself/herself and make sure that the growth is a solid complement to his/her own work.
And the rave about smart work?
Smart work is a complement to hard work – not a substitute.
A Greener SEO Hacker
The team over at SEO Hacker is experiencing a better place to work in not because of me or any individual who worked in the company but because of God’s great grace and because of the holistic effort of everyone in the team today.
The salaries are definitely more competitive. Employee benefits are on the table – as well as some other intangible benefits we had before.
On top of that, there are more jobs within the team.
Improving the Hiring Process
Admittedly, the improvements in our hiring process did a lot of good. The onboarding, employee handbook, mechanisms with teeth, our internal growth platform, etc. – All of these things helped improve the team as a whole. And if the team improves, the company improves.
It’s unfortunate that we had to go through two generations of employees before we found our solid ground. There’s no longer any reason for the internal team to hamper the growth of the company.
All we have to look forward to is up.
