Creating your own role
Episode Transcript
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Alicia Thomas (00:03): Hey, I'm Alicia and you're listening to Non-Founder Crew, your insider guide to surviving and succeeding in tech startups. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Non-Founder Crew podcast. If you tuned into our last episode, you know we were deep in the weeds talking about the classic case where titles can trip us up in startups. And if you haven't listened yet, go ahead and check it out because it's the perfect lead in to what we're diving into today. Now, we're switching gears a bit, but don't worry, it's all connected. Today we're talking about creating your own role at a startup. And look, if you've ever found yourself wondering how to carve out a space that fits your skills, whether it's a new title or a completely unique role that no one else has, you are not alone. I've been there and I know Sam Melnick has too.
(00:54): Speaking of Sam, he's back with us today. Sam's the kind of guy who doesn't wait for a role to be handed to him. He goes out and makes it. He's done it multiple times at startups and he's going to walk us through how you can do the same. Whether you're looking to add more responsibility or simply want to create a role that actually excites you, Sam's got the inside scoop. So grab your coffee, your water, your matcha, get comfy, and let's jump in because today's episode is all about creating your own role and how to make it happen.
(01:27): So looking at your career path, you've talked before about how you went from customer to marketing. You've kind of taken IC manager, gone back to IC.You've jumped around a lot in a good way. I think it's probably like you're never bored, I'm assuming. Talk to me about the idea of creating your own role. I could speak to this a little too, because I think this is kind of the sweet sauce of working at a tech company. No one talks about this, right? But this is how you get the cool job. How have you negotiated creating your own job at a company?
Sam Melnick (02:03): So I did it twice, twice at the same company. And then there's been other times where I've taken on a bit more here or there, but not literally a new role. And the first time I was at a company, actually with you, and fairly quickly I realized this ain't it for me. And I started getting inbound calls from CEOs or VPs to be like, "Hey, I was a CSM at that point." I was like, "Hey, would you be a CSM here?" I'm like, "I don't know if I want to be a CSM, but I got this idea of a role that's like part CSM, part product marketing, part this. " And they'd be like, "That sounds cool. I'd love to hire you, but I don't budget for that. " And so I almost started pressure testing it in that way. And I started realizing I was getting excited about this idea.
(02:49): And I think that's one thing that I learned from my actually coach is understand what excites you, not title, not money, but the thing that lights you up. And so some of the things I was talking about, and so I started writing it down and I knew of this company, Allocadia, because of a previous job when I was an analyst at IDC, which is like Gartner Forrester. And I got a backdoor introduction to the CEO or the co-founder and got on the call and essentially cold pitched them a role that I'd already pitched to three or four people. So I'd already practiced it. I had a slide deck and it wasn't just like, "Hey, I want to be a gooberly guck." It was like, "I want to do this role. Here's why I'd be good. Here are comps in the market and here's what the job description would be.
(03:38):
" And I basically said, "What do you think? " And I just got really fortunate that there was these two founders and an executive team that believed in this idea. It was fortunate that I had done, I knew a bunch of their customers, I already kind of knew their product. So it was like right place, right time. And I shot my shot and it took longer than a typical hiring cycle. It had speed bumps. I had to stay really persistent. I had to be listen. And then when I got in there, I also had to be ready, which I wasn't ready for this, where people were kind of like, "Who's this guy? What is his job? Is he coming for my job? What's his deal?" And I wasn't. I just was like, "I got this really cool job that I got to do. " Really, I was just like, I get to go do a job that I wrote myself and I get to work with founders, but there's levels of politics.
(04:29): And then there's the whole, now you're close to a founder, which is good, but then that can change as well. I can get hard.
Alicia Thomas (04:37): Blessing and a curse.
Sam Melnick (04:39): Yes.
Alicia Thomas (04:39): I think one thing that you're skipping over here or maybe you're not giving yourself enough credit for is you came to the interview and you're excited, right? There's something really important about enthusiasm, especially in an early tech company where you're looking to build and you need people who are on board with a mission and you also want people who are going to go out and get shit done and go and just knock down stuff. And if you come in and you're like, "I have this whole job and this is how we're going to make money off of it and this is what I'll do for the business," you're like a founder's dream. I think that is overlooked. You know what I mean? You still got to sell it and you did, but coming in and being like, "I'm so stoked on your product. I'm so excited by what you're doing.
(05:23): I've already thought of a million ways that I can riff and grow the business." It's like the cartoon with the love eyes, like the skunk.
Sam Melnick (05:32): Here's how we'll measure success. And then the other thing is like, yes, and the excitement, there's a healthy amount of excitement and fear. I can just remember because the company was based in Vancouver, Canada, and I flew out for my first week to Vancouver from Boston. And then later that week I went down to San Francisco for a conference. And I wrote a blog post about the conference for the company on my way back home from San Francisco to Boston and keeping that energy going and putting those wins on the board in week one. And the same thing happened at this job I'm at currently, we were out in LA and we needed to do a product launch. And I looked around the room and I asked, "Well, who's owning this? " And there's kind of shrugs. And I was like, "All right, I guess I'm owning it.
(06:20): " So day four, I started planning a product launch. And that wasn't creating my own job description, but that's the beauty of these startups is you can just be like, "All right, I'm going to go do this thing that I really don't have any right to truly own on day four and have this much input on, but you can. " And you can, with hard work and good collaboration and willingness to take feedback and enough humility, but also enough ego to do it all, then you kind of get these opportunities much faster and the learning experience accelerate. And that's how you get the opportunity to then write your job description or take on the next thing or get offered something that maybe you don't want because you've shown that you've got the energy and you'll do the thing. I know you've experienced that multiple times.
Alicia Thomas (07:14): Yeah. You got to be careful what you're excited about or you know what, or what you question like, "Hey, that thing over there seems broken. You know what? Do not bring it up unless you would like to be responsible for that. " I think the point that's really important to drive home here is that you have been able to kind of create your own roles and get buy-in for them largely because you've zoomed out, looked at the whole business, came with enthusiasm, but you had a business case, right? I know a lot of people are like, "Oh, I'd love to make social media for this company or how do I get a cool job?" Okay. But behind that, there's a business context and there is a plan. That's the big part is there are so many things that you can go after like whack-a-mole. How do we prioritize and pick the ones that you think you can do fast or do well and really move the needle?That's the big trick with that kind of making your own job.
Sam Melnick (08:14): Yeah. And the second time I did it was when I moved from managing 11 or whatever person team to an IC, which was like, that was really scary. I lost sleep over that one, but I had a high conviction that that's what I wanted to do for multiple reasons. And I actually went out and found comparisons of people that were doing a similar job to me. And I called, messaged them on LinkedIn, and I think one of the three of them would be willing to hop on the phone or exchange emails with me just to talk through their role. So the prep that I put into it was probably a large reason why, because I came with it, I showed comparisons, I talked about ... Again, I think the thing about startups is you can just do things and sometimes you get told no, but sometimes you get a yes or nobody's asking, you just go do it.
(09:08): And that's where the fun happens, but it can also be really scary.
Alicia Thomas (09:15): The side project that you suddenly are like, "Hmm, this could help us hit our goal." And they're like, "What do you mean you've been working on that over there?" Those things that you keep in the closets.
(09:27): Yep. Okay. Quick pause here because I've actually been in a similar situation to what Sam's talking about. Not exactly, but I've had my fair share of creating my own roles at a startup. I felt a mix of excitement, a bit of fear, and a whole lot of learning on the job. But honestly, once I figured out that you could do this, it changed everything for me. So a bit of context. The time that I think of most when I talk about creating your own role is really back to my first marketing role. At the time I was working as the office administrator, I was restocking the kitchen, I was helping HR with paperwork, really just like day-to-day admin tasks. A few months into my time at that company, we had the chief marketing officer join in our Boston office. I was at a remote location.
(10:15): Our headquarters was in San Mateo, California at the time. But anyways, he joined the company and he didn't have any people in Boston. So he and I kind of became friends and ended up chatting a lot. I said to him one day, "Hey, if you ever need photography for the website or headshots, just let me know. " I had a photography degree. I really had used it since I graduated and just thought, "You know what? This is an opportunity for me to pitch some of my skills. Maybe I can get some different work experience." And he turned around to me and said, "I really don't need photography, but I would love to have someone do video for us. So go record customer interviews and really help us figure out how we can have more video content for the company. But I don't have staffing to make that a full-time role.
(10:59): Do you want to go figure it out? " So I did. I went and I found somebody to train me on video production and editing. Well, actually editing, I ended up watching a 12 or 14 hour tutorial on Premier Pro. It was really mind numbing, but I would do an hour at a time and try and learn video editing that way. And then yeah, I hired someone to come in and teach me kind of like production skills and then from there kind of hit the ground running. So I spent half my day doing admin for a while. I would onboard people at the new office, I would get lunch and clean it up and all that kind of stuff. And then there were moments where I could do video production or I could do some content or visual things, which was really cool. So I kind of did both of those for a couple of months and then started to be like, "I wish this could grow into something more." And eventually got the company to agree to give me a second title.
(11:51): We had to figure out what it was called. We had to write the scope. I had to figure out how to balance it with my existing job. Again, there wasn't budget for a full-time person to do that, but it was something that they needed and they wanted to invest in their people, which is really cool. So I got to think about what I wanted that job to be called. We got to write a scorecard and a job description and how we're going to measure it. And after I ended up doing both jobs at the same time for, I want to say it was like six months or a year or something, eventually I convinced the company to make it a full-time role and I joined marketing. I still can't believe to this day that I was able to pull that off as a junior person, but that was a great learning moment for me to see how you could move departments, how you could navigate working amongst offices all over the country and how to find leverage and learn on the job.
(12:42): I think my biggest takeaway from that experience, if I'm to dig in a bit deeper is in that moment where I was able to create my own job title and job description and all of that, I look back and the title that I landed on was multimedia producer. I remember at the time they were like, "Yeah, figure out what you want to be called." Content marketing was really a thing in B2B, which we were. And I was like, "I'm not like a writer," which is funny because I actually am a writer, but back then I didn't see myself in that way and I really enjoyed the video media part of it. So I ended up picking multimedia producer. Fast forward to when I needed to find my next job, it was really hard. I really, looking back now, wish I had thought more about how to go broad with title, especially when I was junior, so that I had more of a chance when I was meeting new people to possibly be somebody that they could see having a headcount for on their team.
(13:42): So content marketing associate would've been great, but it was a great lesson to learn that sometimes being a bit more of a generalist, especially at a startup is probably more advantageous than going super niche. I also learned that when you take on a new role, oftentimes you've got a whole job description and expectations. At a startup, there really can be a lot of flexibility in terms of what a job looks like. I've come into positions where it's the first time that they've hired someone into that role and they're figuring out what they need. So they put the job description together that is like the dream list, right? And then you get in and you're like, "I can't execute on all 10 of these things. That's just impossible. So how do I pick off the three or four and do them really well?" And I think that also is part of the creating your own role.
(14:29): There can be some massaging or what I like to call creative liberty when you take on a role at a company that they haven't had before. So yeah, my personal story there is it is possible. I have done it in a couple of different ways. The second time I did it was a role expansion. So I had been the director of community at Postscript where I was really leading all of our community activities, social media. We were doing a lot of really cool campaigns to get the community engaged. It was very much content marketing focused with a community aspect of education. And in doing that and creating kind of these mini branded projects, eventually my role grew into one where a lot of my responsibility was around brand and brand not only as visual, but more about like, what is our story? How do we talk about ourselves?
(15:22): How do we carve out the narrative or how do we show up in this space? And so by taking on more and more of that work from being the director of community to the head of brand and community, which really was pretty cool. I have a creative background, but I had never really owned brand in the way that I had when I was at Postscript, and a lot of it was by doing projects along the way that were successful. Okay, so that's just a quick story for me, but trust me, what's coming up next is something you'll want to hear because I know you'll relate to it. Have you ever wondered what it really means when they talk about your work in board meetings? Is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? Well, you'll have to stick around to find out. Now let's jump back into the interview.
(16:08): I am curious. So we have a segment called Survive and Thrive. And looking back at your career, I'm curious what's one thing you wish Sam of 10 or 15 years knew? Like what would be the career advice, especially regarding titles that you kind of wish you didn't have to sit through and learn the hard way?
Sam Melnick (16:30): I wish I had less hesitation to just go do even more, particularly earlier in my career, particularly before I had kids. It's not about working more hours, but I can remember sitting there being like, "Ah, I wish I can't wait till I have eight to 10 years experience so I can go apply for this title or that title." And now I'm like, "I kind of wish I only had, at times, I wish I had three to five ... I wish I was earlier in my career because you'd be able to do so much more and try so many more things when the stakes were lower, both professionally and personally." And kind of goes back to the job titles that these startups, the job titles don't actually matter that much. And we put a lot of like, well, if I was a director, it's like sometimes, yeah, but sometimes no.
(17:20): Sometimes as a manager I see, like a marketing manager I see, when you see something and you go figure it out, you have so much more leeway and you learn so much more and you have to go on podcasts at some point and tell stories about like when I was a stupid marketing manager, I did this thing and it worked and then I got promoted, who the hell would've thought that? So I wish I had done more of that, particularly at the first startup because I was like too fear based there and fear can be a big driver, but if you let it take too much, it's an inhibitor where when you're early at these companies, there's just so many opportunities and executives and founders eat that up and not in a bad way, in a way they talk about those people and they're like, they are doing amazing things and we need to make sure that they get more opportunities and you need to make sure you spend time with it because those conversations happen all the time.
(18:18): And I didn't know that and I got lucky a few times, but I wish I had taken that energy even earlier and more so early in my career.
Alicia Thomas (18:28): When you hear your work is being talked about in the board meeting, that is a good indicator to push for more.
Sam Melnick (18:35): Yeah. They don't talk about bad work in the board meeting. Let me tell you- I was going to
Alicia Thomas (18:39): Say, the board meeting is the highlights. So if you keep getting asked for slides on your work, you're doing something right, right?
Sam Melnick (18:44): If senior leadership is asking for your work to share at the senior leadership meeting or the board meeting, those are good signs. Keep going, ask for more, so on, so forth.
Alicia Thomas (18:55): Cool. Well, thank you so much for joining us on this podcast. I feel like we've got eight more episodes of things to cover, so maybe we'll have to have you come back a couple more times.
Sam Melnick (19:05): Anytime. Always a pleasure.
Alicia Thomas (19:10): Thank you for listening to Non-Founder Crew. If you want more insights, learnings, and stories from the trenches, sign up for my newsletter by going to www.nonfoundercrew.com. And hey, listen, if you know a friend who could stand to hear this advice, send it to them. See you next time.