Hi there! A lot has already been written about the differences between working at a startup and working at a large company. However, there is another important difference that is often disregarded by candidates, but that is nonetheless very important. The differences between working at a Business-to-Business (B2B) or a Business-to-Customer (B2C) company can be as important for your decision on your next workplace as the size of it.
Each company is obviously different from each other, and there are exception to all rules. However, depending on its size and the type of clients they have, it’s possible to identify some patterns.
Startups vs Large companies
Let’s start by analyzing the differences between working at startups and working at large companies.
Work-life balance
When working at a startup, it’s well known that the work-life balance can generally be more volatile than working at a large company. Usually, the smaller the company, the more stressful and energy-draining it can be. If there is a problem, you will probably be the one who gets called, while at a large company, there are many teams that can get called to solve a problem. At a startup, the development cycles are also shorter, which means faster development, faster and more often deployments, but less time for testing. At a large company, fewer deployments are the norm, but the testing of each one is essential.
Autonomy, Responsibility & Visibility
At a startup, you will usually have more freedom, autonomy and responsibility than in a large company. You are much more visible, which means that your impact (and mistakes) are more obvious. At a large company you will have less freedom and responsibility, because many of the decisions have already been made by someone up in the hierarchy. You will also have less visibility, which is bad if you want to stand out, but good if you want to blend in. Many developers report the feeling of being “just a cog in the wheel” in large companies.
Engineering Process & Quality Bar
While there is no hard rule about which type of companies produces better code, in startups there are usually fewer safeguards (fewer tests and verifications), as shipping fast is prioritized over reliability. This can sometimes results in large tech debt. The products are also less stable, as there are fewer clients (or sometimes no clients at all). In large companies, usually with slower development, there are more reviews, checks and verifications, and there is a stronger emphasis on reliability and long-term stability. You will usually be maintaining or iterating on already existing products, with good practices in place.
Learning
In startups, learning depends much on the other members of the team. Mentorship can be limited because everyone is focused on building, and it may be the case that most or all team members are not very experienced. Regardless, you will learn a lot by doing, because usually you will have do to a bit of everything. You may need to be a jack-of-all-trades, since there is a lot to do and not many employees who can help you. You may also have the opportunity to build something from scratch, which is rarer in large companies. In large companies, there is usually more guidance from other senior colleagues, as well as better onboarding and mentorship, but you will probably not work across many different parts of the overall architecture, as there most likely are teams focused on different services. You may turn into a specialist in a specific area (depth instead of breadth).
B2B vs B2C
A company with a B2B business model sells products to other companies. Salesforce, Oracle or SAP are some example. Companies with a B2C business model sell products directly to clients. Examples of such companies are Meta, Google and Apple.
But what are the differences between working at a B2B company and working at a B2C company?
Business Stability
B2B companies usually have a more predictable revenue stream, so they are considered more stable. Once customers sign, there is much less existential panic. The sales cycles here can be long but very important. The iteration cycles are usually shorter when compared with B2C companies, and the changes are often coordinated. Backward compatibility is important. When you work directly for the clients, there is a greater probability that the traffic or revenue can drop suddenly, which requires more adaptability and sudden changes of plans. This makes it so that the pace is faster than most B2B companies, with faster iteration loops. Launch weeks can be specially intense and stressful, because there can be a high number of users stress-testing the product.
Customer Proximity
B2B companies tend to work much closer to customer problems. Their feedback is also more direct, which allows to change the priorities easily according to their needs. The product is more often shaped by sales and customer success, which means that roadmaps are mainly externally-driven. One downside of this is that the needs of just one important client can significantly change priorities, which will affect all other clients. If that client needs a specific feature, even if no other customer wants it, you may have to build it either way. In B2C companies, the feedback is much more indirect and data-driven. Given that users must usually be anonymous, it’s common that the feedback is gathered by observing metrics like clicks on a website, number of users that follows a specific workflow, etc. Data is central here: A/B testing, funnels or growth loops are common techniques to gather more usage data from the users. As decisions are heavily metric-driven, observability into user behavior is essential. An individual user usually does not have the power to influence the direction of the product.
Engineering Focus
At B2B companies, integrations are very important. The clients usually already have other software and they want to integrate your own into their workflow, so APIs and custom setups per customer can be important. At B2C companies, on the other hand, performance testing is critical. Since you don’t know how many clients you will have, you need to scale your architecture accordingly if a sudden spike in users occurs. For B2C, on-call also tends to be more stressful due to large user bases and unexpected peak times.
Product ownership & Responsibility
At B2B companies, features tend to live for years. It can be hard and risky to remove or change them, because they are used by large enterprise users that also don’t want those features to change. There is a strong expectation of long-term support and maintenance. This can create technical and product debt over time. At B2C companies, it’s much easier to replace or create new features, as those are much more short-lived. Feature deprecation is expected, and there is less long-term commitment to individual product decisions. The responsibility is much more about current performance than about historical decisions. This also means that, when working for a B2C company, it’s more likely that you will end up creating new features instead of just maintaining old ones.
Having worked across some of these environments, a few things stand out:
When working at a B2C Startup:
- Very volatile environment, with high ambiguity
- The pace is very high with frequent iterations
- There can be high stress during launch and growth fases
- Experimentation is constant
- High risk, high reward - success or failure is amplified, and pivoting or throwing work away can be a necessity
When working at a B2B Startup:
- Work very close to real customer problems
- High autonomy and visibility
- Features can live for years, but mistakes can compound over time
- Strong pressure to ship, but also not to break trust
- Broad learning from product, engineers and customers
- Can be intense, but often meaningful work
When working at a B2C Large Company:
- Usually large user bases
- Understanding scalability requirements is important
- Very good observability and metrics
- Performance tests are essential
- Pressure comes from visibility and scale, not from survival.
When working at a B2B Large Company:
- Very stable product
- Slower pace, more coordination
- Mature processed and engineering standards
- Backwards compatibility is very important
- Testing is very important
Thanks for reading!