When I started looking for a job in London, things seemed promising. There were many opportunities and interesting companies. I began applying and managed to book a few interviews with companies I liked, even reaching the third round of interviews with one.

I thought to myself, "This is going to be easy." Then, the dreaded emails started to come: “Thank you for your interest...”, “This position has been filled...”, “After careful consideration...”. After just a few weeks, I felt I had exhausted all my options for companies that fit my criteria. I wanted to work for a small to medium-sized company in the tech industry, where I could find meaning in my work. I wanted to be motivated by what I was building, not just by a paycheck.

As the weeks turned into months, I became more disillusioned and needed to find a job. So, I started looking at job openings I had initially avoided: bigger, more corporate companies. The week I booked my first quantitative analyst interview, Queen Elizabeth II died.

These two seemingly unrelated events led me to my current job. When the Queen died, many people wanted to pay their respects, and the queue stretched throughout London, along the Thames, and across the London Bridge, reaching our current office window.

On that day, my now coworkers decided to film a TikTok playing the guitar and entertaining the queue. That video appeared on my FYP, and I liked it. This led me to see their following post about hiring. I was curious, so I looked into it, applied, and now I have been working for RGC for the last year and a half.

This experience taught me a valuable lesson: you never know where good opportunities might arise, so it's important to keep an open mind and pursue the chances you get.

On my first day at work, I showed up at the office and started looking for the name of my company on the intercom but couldn't find it. I rang the reception, but nobody was there. I sent an email to my contacts but got no response. Eventually, I walked into the office, and one of the co-founders said, “Oh, you are starting today? Give me a second, and let's go get a coffee.”

Second lesson: startups are busy and messy. There is no HR, no assigned office space with your name and laptop on it. This can be disorienting if you come from a very structured work environment, but it can also be freeing once you understand how things work. When I started at RGC, it felt like 100 things were happening at once. What was a priority a week ago had now been replaced by a more important project. I initially found it difficult to shift from working on one complex task and solving it over time to reacting to changing circumstances and priorities. But as time went on, I started to enjoy these challenges and found myself excited about not knowing what I might do the next day.

This brings me to the next lesson: in a startup, roles do not exist—only objectives. I was hired as a product manager at RGC, but over the last 18 months, I have also been a data analyst, graphic designer, booth operator, salesman, account manager, and Google Ads consultant. You will do things you never expected to do, and you will need to adapt and learn. This has been a rewarding experience personally and has given me a more complete understanding of what it takes to run a successful business.

Startups need to be nimble and react quickly to changing circumstances, but they also struggle to find the one product that will set them apart. When I started at RGC, our main product seemed to change every few months. It got to the point where I felt frustrated, thinking we had no clear direction. But from all those trials, errors, and pivots, we found our way and are now creating a suite of products that I believe will be successful. Trust that all the seemingly useless days working on a product that never saw the light of day can be building blocks to a successful product.

Working at RGC has been the most interesting work experience I’ve had, not only because of the products we create and the brand we help but also because of the great team here. My girlfriend jokes that I found a group of coworkers just as weird as I am, and she is right. I feel very lucky to have landed with a group of people who are interesting, passionate about  what they do, and know that work is only a part of life.