Why relationships matter (and good teams should stay together)

Landing my job started twelve years ago. It was 2007 and I made the decision to go from a large corporate (more than 2,000 people) into something smaller. I wasn’t feeling heard. My contributions were blended in with all of the other noise and with all of the red tape and politics, it was difficult for my team and I to make progress on anything we cared about. Mistakes were often and product missteps costly. Start-ups were in their infancy in NYC (at least for non-VCs) so I had no idea what I was getting myself into... but I knew I wanted to try. Leaving the security of a massive organization behind, I hustled hard to break into the mythical start-up scene. After some serious networking (attending as many tech-focused events as I could afford to... or showing up to talks I couldn’t afford to and trying to talk to the speakers as they networked after) I finally found an organization that was building something cool. The company was called Motionbox. We were a small team (at max we hit about 20 full time employees) and we were making the first incarnation of private video sharing (think Shutterfly for video… remember, it was 2007). I joined the team as a digital marketer and it was my job to build and engage our community (I had come from the agency side in email channel marketing and this was the first time I would own my own product). The entire org collaborated better than I’d ever seen. Engineers, marketing, product, analysts, executives… we were all operating with incredibly high efficiency and equally (if not higher) respect and admiration for one another. We always joked that if given the opportunity we would all work together again…. After 3 wonderful years working with the team, the company was sold to HP (makers of Shutterfly). Over the next decade, I moved on to other start-ups across many industries in NYC, SF, and LA honing my skills as a digital marketer and working my way up through the ranks, eventually building teams and setting corporate KPIs. Through all of it, I always remained close with the Motionbox team. In the spring of 2018 I was sitting in my living room shamelessly indulging in Cosmo magazine when a good friend called me and said “I made a thing and I know exactly who I want to help build it”. Twelve years separates the person I was in my early career and the leader I’ve grown to become. Twelve years separates a team of individuals who have all since gone on to grow in their own ways. I couldn’t have known then that twelve years would pass before these people would (once again) be so critical to my journey. Here I am, twelve years later, the co-founder and CMO alongside core members of my favorite team. You will encounter great people along your journey. People who bring out the best in you and let you inspire them. People who share your passion and tenacity and thrive when making something to share with the world. Don’t lose site of them. Keep them in your lives. Great relationships are important to growth and, even if more than a decade passes, they pay off.Stephanie is a (self-proclaimed) Magical Tech Wizard and (not-just-self-proclaimed) Co-Founder & CMO of Quorum Control. She believes in the power of progress and works tirelessly to push inclusion in everything she does. She is irrationally enraged by cilantro #livingdatfeministlife

Why relationships matter (and good teams should stay together)Featured

Why relationships matter (and good teams should stay together)Featured