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" I didn't even know that there was a startup culture, that there were events with people who built businesses. When I started meeting those people and going in to that world, I felt like I was among my people for the first time in my life. "

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" I'm an entrepreneur, so I've got to be ruthless about 'me' time if I want to have any left to myself! I make myself leave the office by 8 or 9 P.M. most nights, even if I do curl up with my laptop and a glass of wine at home to get through email. "

Kathryn Minshew

Home

Myself

" For almost the first year of The Muse's life, I would do 5 to 8 networking events a week. And I don't necessarily think that's the right path for everyone, but I realized that as an entrepreneur, one of my strengths was finding the right people who could help us. I didn't come into startups with any network. "

" We knew when we started the Daily Muse, we wanted a recruiting-focused business model rather than an advertising-focused one. We felt like publishers were being forced to go to more and more extreme lengths to monetize through advertising. "

" I think the idea of a 'perfect job' is a myth - there are pros and cons of every position, good days and bad days, and even what most people would consider dream jobs come with their share of downsides. "

" For many people, the hardest thing about job-seeking is figuring out where to start. All through college, I heard my friends asking themselves, 'What do I want to do with my life?' And guess what? After college, and after that first job, people still ask the same question. "

" Sure, you're an intelligent and highly capable individual, and you are learning a lot on the fly as you build your company. But you also need to come to terms with the fact that there are things you have chosen not to be an expert in. "

" Work is personal in the same way that finding a friend or partner is personal. "

" When The Daily Muse initially wanted to launch a job board, our first ideas were insanely (and needlessly) complex. We wanted to integrate with social networks, gather rich personal data to build predictive algorithms, and put together numerous cool visualization tools before launching out to the world. We were just sure users would love it! "

" Most weeks, I work 100-plus hours on TheMuse.com. There are definitions of 'work-life balance' that would say I have none. "

" When I started my first company, I still had a 40-hour a week job. I was working on my company on nights and weekends before I took the plunge and gave up a salary. "

" With clearly defined roles and a focus on communication, it's much easier to make your company come across as well-organized and on top of things - because it actually is. "

" I work late nights catching up on emails, and then, in the mornings, I just hop on my laptop right away. Then, every other day, I'll hop into the shower! My husband is horrified that I don't shower every day. "

Kathryn Minshew

Late

Work

" Even your most talented employees have room for growth in some area, and you're doing your employee a disservice if the sum of your review is: 'You're great!' No matter how talented the employee, think of ways he could grow towards the position he might want to hold two, five, or 10 years down the line. "

" There were so many lessons I learned the hard way: missing out on a raise because I didn't know to ask, having colleagues consistently get credit for my ideas because of how I spoke up in meetings. When I looked for a resource that addressed the challenges I was facing, I couldn't find it. There was nothing. "

" Keeping a 'CEO blog' or 'founder's blog' can be a great platform for engaging your users in a nontraditional way, reaching people outside of your product pitch and building rapport without selling them anything except a belief in your ideas. "

" Something I've learned is that when people tell me I can't do something, I immediately wonder why and then think it through. It only makes me more motivated to prove them wrong. "

Kathryn Minshew

People

Prove

" As we've grown 'The Daily Muse' and met contacts who want to collaborate with us, knowing who does what has helped us be clear on who we want our partners to connect with - and makes us look buttoned up, too. SEO firm? Talk to our COO. An editor from the 'Huffington Post?' Meet our Editor-in-Chief. "

" Work-life balance for founders doesn't look like work-life balance for everyone else. Starting a company isn't a nine-to-six job - or a nine-to-nine job, or a nine-to-midnight job. "

" If you're able to arrange a trial period with a new hire, do it. It will give both of you a chance to make sure the position is a good fit - and can help you avoid being in the awkward situation of wanting to fire someone three or four weeks in. "

" Networking doesn't have to be all about talking shop over appetizers and bad chardonnay - do it in a way that works for you. "

" The most important thing in startups is getting a product to market, as imperfect as it may be, and then iterating on it and continually making it better. A first rev of a site that has a few typos may not be perfect, but it was the start of something that I deeply believed in. "

" Millennials can be very hardworking, but it's easier to tell the story of the ones who are entitled. "

" Understanding your employee's perspective can go a long way towards increasing productivity and happiness. "

" I am a big advocate for having an open discussion about team norms and preferences. At The Muse, some of us like to start working at 7:30 A.M. Others focus best from 10 P.M. to 2 A.M. Create a culture where it's acceptable not to be working when someone else is working. "

" When I was still a bright-eyed McKinsey consultant, I remember hitting a point where I didn't know what to do next, and someone gave me the book, 'How Remarkable Women Lead,' and I read it and scribbled in it, and it felt like a guide in helping me figure out my career. "

Kathryn Minshew

Career

Remember

" As you move through the application process, keep refining the way you present yourself. Like any skill, you'll only get better with practice, and you'll only hurt yourself if you get discouraged too early. This is one race that's definitely a marathon, not a sprint. "

" There are always going to be obstacles. I think the bigger your aspirations, the larger the obstacles. "

" It's fantastic to be known as a company that responds quickly to users, shares great resources and friendly banter with them over Twitter, and forges relationships on Pinterest, Facebook, and every other social media site out there. "

" My first company failed completely. And it failed at about ten months old. I had about 12 months of savings, so when it failed I was thinking: 'Do I go back to work?' And at that point I believed so deeply in what I was doing that I couldn't imagine anything else other than trying to make this business work. "

" I tend to find you have to be fairly vulnerable to get something... to get a perspective worth having. Which can be controversial. But I find telling someone what you're thinking about, what you want, and what you're afraid of can often help them give guidance. "