I’ve been fortunate enough to work for a number of ‘mature start-ups’ recently. On paper, the story is compelling – combine the wisdom, experience and reputation of an established company with the hunger, guile and enthusiasm of new joiners to do things differently. In such circumstances it’s easy to under-estimate the degree to which old and new attitudes are hard wired, and what people say is not always what they really feel. Living a new culture that works for both is easy to say, much harder to do for real. Many fail along the way, and those that succeed are truly special.
On mature start ups