A return to a corporate lifestyle won’t hurt

Holidays are a revelation for Barnaby Voss. In his current job at Google, the US technology group, he is able to switch off when he takes a break.

That was not the case in his previous role as co-founder of BlikBook, a virtual platform for students and academics in higher education.

“When you’re an entrepreneur, you don’t have proper holidays. You’re doing it full time. It’s always on your mind. It’s very hard to get clear head space.”

For those who feel trapped in corporate life, the dream of joining a start-up can be enticing. The lures are typically autonomy and excitement, as well as the prospect of huge fortunes.

Disruptive entrepreneurs are the poster boys for the start-up life — take Travis Kalanick who co-founded Uber, the taxi app, in 2009 and today is worth $6 billion (Dh22 billion), according to Forbes rich list.

Yet there are some like Voss who make the reverse journey and quit the entrepreneurial life for a large company. Many others are forced to find a job when their own company fails.

This might be a short pause, before they venture out again, or a lasting shift, but these entrepreneurs-turned-employees find unexpected joys — as well as constraints — in company life.

Voss loved the five years he spent establishing BlikBook. He enjoyed the steep learning curve: “I put myself in uncomfortable positions. You learn how to cope.”

The camaraderie among the founders was important too: “I liked the small team. It created strong bonds — it was us against the world.”

Yet when it came to preparing to sell the company to Civitas Learning, the US analytics company, he realised he wanted a break from entrepreneurial activities and joined Google as a marketing executive.

Security was a factor: he no longer feels responsible for the entire business if something goes wrong: “It wouldn’t bring the company down.” Whereas previously it felt that it would.

Today, he relishes the expertise and support he can draw on at the big tech group. “You don’t have to know it all. You can get help. You can tap into work people have already done.”

Chris Doman, a computer science graduate who created a hotel search engine with a school friend, which they later sold, is now at PwC working on cyber security. Training was a key reason he wanted to work for the professional services firm.

While he was working with his friend he felt “static” and craved career development. “When I was on my own I picked up bad tech habits. I wanted to learn good tech habits. Now people check up on me.”

This resonates with Chloe Macintosh, a co-founder at Made.com, the online furniture retailer, who is now creative adviser to Soho House, the group that comprises private members’ clubs, hotels and restaurants.

“It’s nice to be part of something and focus on learning from others,” she says. She sees her consultancy for Soho House as an important breathing space after five years of building a company from scratch.

“I don’t think going from start-up to start-up is very healthy.”

Creativity, she says, is valuable to a start-up and it is impossible to sustain over a long period if you are on the brink of burning out. “You have to keep your sanity,” she says. “You need a lot of energy to start a business. There is a general stress and constant tension.”

She also believes that a period of working for other people can give entrepreneurs a dose of humility. “Lots of entrepreneurs say they can’t work for others. It might be a sign that their ego is too big and perhaps they won’t make good managers [as an entrepreneur].”

Macintosh questions the romance that surrounds entrepreneurship. “People want to preserve a ‘start-up culture’. Why? It can be terrible. You get no life, no benefits.”

There is also, she says, a persistent belief among employees of large companies that small enterprises lack office backbiting. “The politics are different but start-ups have politics like how to split the equity. People expect running your own company is simpler. It’s not.”

Chris Barton, co-founder of Shazam, the music app, who left in 2004 for Google, which by then had just under 2,000 employees, says that corporate versus start-up is a false dichotomy.

Much depends on what stage of development a venture is at — seed capital or round two of finance raising, for instance. “The world sees it as start-up and companies, but it’s more sophisticated than that.”

Nonetheless, he admits the illusion is that a new enterprise is bureaucracy-free.

“That’s a massive mistake. You can get freedom and time for creativity at a large company.”

Being able to focus on one part of the business, as employees can, is liberating. “At Shazam I worried about everything across the company all the time. At Google I could concentrate on my silo.”

He is now the head of carrier partnerships at Dropbox, the online storage company.

Narry Singh, a serial entrepreneur based in Silicon Valley for 19 years, became managing director of digital business strategy at Accenture consulting last year because he felt it would be the best place to make an impact.

“I valued the distribution and scale of a big company. You can have the best idea in the world but it’s no good if only seven people are using it.”

Large employers, notably banks, have had to rethink their junior roles and corporate culture in order to retain and attract talent that is drawn to entrepreneurship. Stephen Stott, chief executive of Stott & May, an executive recruitment company, says big companies have had to adapt by introducing incubators and encouraging innovation prizes.

Voss advises caution to entrepreneurs tempted to switch, however. “Often companies say they want someone with entrepreneurial experience but in reality they don’t.”

While it is hard, he says, to gauge a company’s culture from the outside, it is important to do as much research as possible by talking to its employees.

After all, the layers of management can be a shock to those entrepreneurs who are used to being in charge. As Doman notes: “At my company I could set up a web server in 10 minutes. That wouldn’t be possible at PwC.”

— Financial Times