It has been three long and eventual weeks since I started my new role at Pearachute. Three weeks ago I was working at a payroll company, working through my day-to-day tasks. Each day seemed to blend into one another.
Working at Pearachute has been the wake up call I have been waiting for. Everyday is different when you work at a startup. Your role is less defined and more focused on the skills you can add to the team. Each day presents new and exciting challenges.
My role is primarily focused on managing and creating content for the blog and all social media accounts. Yet, there are areas where I want to help the company grow that venture beyond my job description.
Be Helpful and Take Ownership of Problems
At Pearachute, the whole team works together in an open workspace. We have morning check-in’s everyday to go over priorities and product meetings every Wednesday to go over improving the app.
As a new team member, I have focused primarily on listening and absorbing the pain points within the company. Since going national, Pearachute is focused on being ‘THE’ app for kids activities.
My best skills stem from visual critique and design. We want to improve the user’s experience of the app and make it easy to understand and use. In the coming weeks I plan to work with the new front-end developers and help them design new frameworks and user interfaces that will improve the functionality of our application.
Take on New Projects
This week I helped to create a flyer for some upcoming summer events. We are attaching a QR Code to the flyer so that people can take a picture and take a quick survey. This will give us new leads to potential customers. The survey will help grow our email lists, therefore we can redirect them through future email campaigns. Here is the flyer I created, which will go on our partners’ tables at different events around the city.
Another project I took on this week was creating Instagram accounts for our Family Fun Instagram campaign. The campaign’s purpose is to have Pearachute’s community coordinators manage a Family Fun instagram account where they post fun events in their city. Each account is lightly branded as being affiliated with Pearachute. Growing these accounts will help us grow our users in new markets across the country and hopefully grow Pearachute’s national brand awareness. Here is a PDF of guidelines I created for our community coordinators to get started managing their Family Fun accounts.
When In Doubt, Keep Creating
Whenever I feel lost, or out of my workflow, I start designing or writing content. This week, since Mother’s Day is coming up, I wrote some blog content about what Mother’s truly want for their big day. Check out my blogs posts below.
What Every Mom Wants for Mother’s Day
Chicago’s Best Mother’s Day Brunch
Learn from New Opportunities
After three weeks my biggest takeaway is that startups place loads of responsibility on their employees. They’ll hire you because of your skills, but you are expected to do more. You help with everything at a startup. Often, it’s work outside your job description, so there are many opportunities for learning and growth.
Pearachute’s team has been welcoming and helpful as I transition into my role. I could not ask for a better opportunity to grow and learn as a marketer and designer. I can’t wait to see what opportunities arise in the coming