How to survive the tech start-up “brofest”

Named as one of the Top 100 Influential People of 2011 by The Age Melbourne Magazine and one of the Top 10 Female Entrepreneurs by StartupSmart, Kendall has also managed to prove her doubters wrong.

“What I have found frustrating is that people kept offering me jobs all the time and they still do,” she says. “I’ve found it frustrating to prove the vision and to say this isn’t just me and the e-newsletters. It’s a start-up, it’s growing, it’s a serious thing and I’m committed to this.”

While Kendall isn’t new to the start-up world, having consulted on two web start-ups before launching The Fetch, she concedes that the last two years have been a “massive learning curve”.

“While you’re bootstrapping it’s good that we have revenue but it’s definitely – as all entrepreneurs will say – a massive pay cut,” she says.

But despite the pay cut and the volatility that comes with life as an entrepreneur, Kendall says she couldn’t go back to her previous life of commuting to an office.

“I love working from home. The inner introvert in me just loves that quiet time to really get through stuff,” she says.

“Especially for women, if you have children, I think sitting at a desk between a certain amount of hours just to appear like you’re getting what you need done is just not how a lot of us work. It’s an industrialised notion of the workplace that was created to help manufacturing, but it’s not helping creativity.”

Kate Kendall offers her top tips for surviving a start-up:

• Don’t be afraid of what people think: “You have to forget your ego in what you’re doing. Focus on creating something that will resonate with people and really simplify everything. Don’t get caught up in the ‘what-ifs’.”

• Ask why: “Ask yourself why each time, five times. Then you can see that a lot of the stuff we do is a waste of time and not relevant.”

• Have purpose, confidence and belief: “At the end of the day, realise that you are going to do some stuff and to do that, sometimes there will be conflict … To get stuff done you really just have to go for it.”

This article first appeared on Women’s Agenda. https://www.womensagenda.com.au/