How to succeed when you’re brand new.

My first day at Launchsquad was a Wednesday. I had a lot riding on this day. I spent most of my time in college meticulously researching career paths and scheduling coffee chats with anyone I could get a hold of in hopes of uncovering the secret formula to making it. As I stepped through the doors of Launchsquad’s New York office, I looked around at my coworkers and had a simultaneously exciting and scary thought — Wow, everyone around me certainly looks like they know how to make it. 

At first, my realization functioned like jet fuel. Determined to prove to myself (and everyone around me) that I knew what I was doing, I blazed ahead: watching tutorials, finishing onboarding tasks and filling out W2s at warp speed. 

The truth was, that as much as I could research and mentally prepare myself, I didn’t know what I was doing yet. Obviously. 

I confronted this fact when I was handed my first assignment, which I had been practically begging for. I attempted to continue with my earlier full-steam-ahead approach, but I found that I simply… couldn’t. I didn’t know where to begin. Faced with deadlines, spreadsheets and an industry I had absolutely no experience with, I was stuck. I took a deep breath and acknowledged that to succeed, I would need to embrace a more humble approach. One that included letting my guard down, asking for help and admitting what I don’t know—yet. 

After some trial and failure and a lot of daily journaling, I zeroed in on a few key lessons that helped me embrace this new style of learning and allow myself a more human approach to success. 

Accept that you’re new to this. 

For me, the first step towards authentic learning meant acknowledging the scary truth: I was starting from scratch. This understanding wasn’t meant to discount my past experience, but rather helped me embrace a back-to-basics approach and gave me a place to begin. It helped me get really familiar with the foundational aspects of the work and brought enthusiasm to the learning process. 

Just get started. 

Perfectionism is something I struggle with, and not in a superficial, job-interview response way. My perfectionism is often tied to insecurity, which often manifested as a need to appear as if I knew everything. But perfection isn’t realistic or even the goal. What helped me confront my perfectionism (and insecurity) was simply getting started. That first draft is such an important part of success. It’s not meant to be perfect or even good. I’ve had abysmal first drafts and I’ve had half-decent ones — I think the key is to focus on moving forward and building on what you’ve learned rather than having a perfect… anything. 

Be the hand-raiser, ask the questions.

I’ve always been the student who sits in the front of the classroom and asks questions, even in my 8ams. As a student, I understood the twofold importance of asking questions — it helped develop a better understanding of the material and it let my professors know where they could help me learn. Yet, as a budding professional, I erred on the side of silence. I worried that questions were a bother to my more experienced teammates. But in my time at LaunchSquad, I started to make a conscious effort to voice my questions over Slack and email and slowly became more comfortable in the process. 

Stay hungry.

Stay hungry, stay foolish is a phrase that I heard constantly growing up. For my time at LaunchSquad, I’ve kept the first part of this phrase in mind. Once I was comfortable asking questions and built up my foundational knowledge, I demonstrated my eagerness to learn by volunteering myself for new assignments and making myself available for the needs of my teams. A little help can go a long way and it’s mutually beneficial. You get to learn new things and build relationships with your teammates, and they get extra help!

Be a real person.

Since I walked through the doors of LaunchSquad’s New York office on that Wednesday in July, it’s become extremely clear to me the importance of bringing your authentic self to work. I found that the more comfortable I was with being myself and sharing that with the people around me, the more opportunities I had for meaningful connections and collaboration. My coffee chats became more personal, and a little lighter. The advice and anecdotes I received were anchored in work, but began to expand into other aspects of life as well. These holistic connections created space for me to grow – as a person and a teammate.    

My time at Launchsquad is a first step, kicking off my journey into the professional world. While I did have to start from scratch, this time presented itself as an opportunity to self-reflect, grow and redefine what success meant to me. The approach I will carry on with me takes into account that success is both an art and a science — and there’s more than enough space for those two elements to coexist. And as it turns out, succeeding when you know nothing begins with moving forward — the key is to just start. 

Ananya Dutta is a senior Marketing Communications and Public Relations major at Emerson College, and served as ​​LaunchSquad's Foster The Future intern in the summer of 2023.