The Startup Career Accelerator is the go-to newsletter for first-time startup employees who want to navigate chaos, fast-track their growth, and land their first promotion within 12 months. Get practical advice, real-world strategies, and proven frameworks to help you thrive in high-growth, low-structure environments.
The Startup Career Accelerator Advent Calendar -> Week 3
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7 easy, high‑signal experiments to build promotion currency We all know that December attention is as thin as ice, but with end of the year targets looming opinions can get as loud as a crowded pub on Christmas Eve. What cuts through the noise is evidence. This week’s Advent drop gives you 7 tiny experiments you can run in under an hour to build promotion currency: cross-functional context, a living evidence wall, faster references, MVPs, tighter meetings, relationship capital, and objective-driven triage. How to use it: Pick one experiment per day, or choose two levers and repeat them all week (e.g., MVP + Meeting Framework). Log the results in your Evidence Wall so your impact is visible, searchable, and ready for Q1 conversations. Day 1 (Mon): The Cross‑Functional Coffee Goal: Learn what matters to other teams (Sales/Eng/Product) right now.How: Book a 15‑min chat.call and simply ask “What’s your top priority this month?”. After, spend some time thinking if theres any way you can support this objective within your role (intro, doc, quick fix). If you can offer one fast assist. Day 2 (Tue): The Evidence Wall Goal: Make your impacts legible. How: Create a doc to track your wins. You can include things like before/after screenshots, key metrics achieved, client/internal shout‑outs. The hardest part of this is consistency so update it weekly and link it in 1:1 notes. That way not only will you not miss anything, you'll also get better at identifying and packaging your wins. Day 3 (Wed): The Reference Guide Goal: Reduce research/exploration time. How: Ask your manager, “Is there a past example I can mirror?” Then adapt and reuse the skeleton to fit your context. Day 4 (Thu): The MVP Goal: Ship a testable example... fast. How: Set yourself the challenge of having a demo/prototype of your current task ready to go in 60 minutes. Share with your team along with one proposed success metric and the next decision needed. Day 5 (Fri): The Meeting Framework Goal: Save time and drive outcomes in your next team meeting or 1:1. How:Start your next update with Goal / Progress / Decision Needed framework. Keep it to 120 seconds and see what else can be covered when theres space. Day 6 (Sat): The Gratitude Ping Goal: Build relationship capital. How: DM a specific thank‑you to someone who unblocked you recently and share the win: “Because of your [X], we shipped [Y] which [result].” Day 7 (Sun): The Sticky‑Note Objective Goal: Triage like a leader. How: Write the company’s 3 objectives on a sticky (or doc header). Use them to accept/decline next week’s asks. Small habit, big signal: Pick two scripts and reuse them all week. Consistency beats cleverness... and that’s what leaders remember. Thats it! We hope you enjoyed week 3 of the TSCA Advent Calendar edition. Stay tune for part 4 dropping next week. Until next time…Here’s to clarity in the chaos. Hayds & The TSCA Team We share more ideas, resources, and behind-the-scenes insights across our channels: 🔗 LinkedIn 🔗 Website 🔗 Substack |
The Startup Career Accelerator
The Startup Career Accelerator is the go-to newsletter for first-time startup employees who want to navigate chaos, fast-track their growth, and land their first promotion within 12 months. Get practical advice, real-world strategies, and proven frameworks to help you thrive in high-growth, low-structure environments.
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