This article is part of our series “Thriving in Urban Company” Read more articles: Why Go Long on Urban Company ESOPs The Road Less Travelled My Journey with ...
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My journey at Urban Company has been a complete roller coaster, I joined UC as a Software Development Engineer – Intern in January 2016. UrbanClap (Now Urban Company), was a relatively new word in the tech industry and was also in its very early days. During my final round of Interview, I remember asking our co-founder Raghav Chandra about the nature of problems Urban Company was trying to solve; I quickly realized the potential of the problem, the problems UC was (and still is) solving are not only hard but also very unique in nature.
At Urban Company, I got the opportunity to work with great people, tackle big challenges, and make a real impact. As an engineer, there are multiple reasons for working at Urban Company, but if I had to pick the top 5, I would list them as follows:
We believe that it’s fine to move fast and make mistakes than move slow and miss opportunities.
Such freedom is very rare in other companies where you require multiple approvals and need to go through various procedural cycles before trying anything new.
Being a Software Engineer I have also got a good exposure in Product management, improving our SEO rank, talking to customers as a Customer experience agent, etc. Juggling responsibilities not only makes you more aware of your capabilities but also allows you to get a good flavor of the different functions of the industry.
“Urban Company also believes in rewarding the hard work of employees and for that, has a very well structured ESOP program. A company that’s growing 3x YOY, these rewards in terms of stocks are just priceless.”
I got ESOPs in the year 2018 as a part of the yearly appraisal cycle. Frankly speaking, I had no clue about ESOPs back then. I remember my manager telling me during my performance-review meeting “Congratulations! We are giving X ESOPs to you….” and me thinking “Dude – let’s just fast forward to the part where you tell me how much % hike I got”. For me, ESOPs were just a “thing” that companies gave to employees to make them stick to the company. My ignorance towards ESOPs was primarily because of 2 reasons 1) Lack of knowledge 2) Wrong information from people. I had heard the worst things from people and the internet in the past about ESOPs.
My belief in ESOPs completely changed when the news of ESOP secondary was announced. We were told that employees with vested stocks can participate in this process and sell their vested stocks. I remember opening the portal and checking the total number of my vested stocks and doing some math in my head and all of a sudden each and every unit of ESOP started making sense. The “thing” I once got 2 years back suddenly had a meaning – that particular moment was a complete WOW moment for me as the amount of money I could make by selling all my vested ESOPs was more than my total savings. This is when a statement said to me during a 1:1 came back to me – “You cannot create wealth with just your salary, ESOPs are a fantastic way to do that…”.
“I am a firm believer in Urban Company’s mission and all in for the long run.”
The best part is that the only investment I made was through my hard work, this secondary round has not only changed my perspective around ESOPs but also made me believe that hard work pays off. I decided to sell a few stocks to treat myself for the hard work I have put in. I have 100% confidence in Urban Company’s future and growth, and I have decided to keep the remaining stocks with me for the future. Also, it is amazing to see a company which values employees’ hard work with a well-structured ESOP program even in these tough COVID times.
Basic, Hustle & Re-imagine. It is still day 1 for us.
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