Tamara

What It’s Actually Like Being an In-House Creative at a Scale-Up 🎨 Over the past year, I’ve been hiring for creative roles almost nonstop. And I learned a few things working at Tamara that I had never fully appreciated while running an agency or working in corporate. If you’re a creative storyteller, here are 3 things I learned from startup/scale-up life: 1️⃣ You’re much more capable than you think 🍿 When I worked in corporate or agencies, I unintentionally put myself in a box. I thought I needed templates, processes, or “best practices” before I could do something well. A week ago, I was speaking to a managing director at a strategic advisory and communications consultancy telling her:“I miss order. I want comms templates. I miss global best practices.” And she said something that really stayed with me: “What if you’re actually much faster without all of that?” Thanks to her wisdom, that changed how I think about my day to day. Sometimes you already know how to solve the problem intuitively. You see the gap, connect the dots, and figure it out creatively without needing a playbook first. 2️⃣ A startup/scale-up teaches you soft skills the hard way. In large organizations, I usually knew the annual plan, the timelines, and the priorities months ahead. Now? Every week comes with competing priorities. And honestly, that’s what brought out the leader in me. You learn: • What truly deserves focus • What to intentionally deprioritize • When perfection is necessary (like quarterly results, annual reports) • And when “good and done” is enough for recurring work If everything is urgent, you’re forced to develop judgment, prioritization, and decision-making very quickly. 3️⃣ A scale-up gives you creative room to reinvent urself I meet some of the best agency talent during hiring, and after a year or two at an agency many want to leave citing: “I learned everything”. I never understood what they meant At a scale-up, the company evolves so fast that your role evolves with it. We jokingly call it the “Lego rule”, you build something for six months, then suddenly the business expands and you’re solving a completely different challenge. That’s what makes it both exciting & challenging. If you’re curious and like trying different things, startup/ scale up life gives you a rare amount of that exposure. The smaller the team, the easier it is to raise your hand and try something new. And for some creatives, that kind of environment can accelerate growth & learning.