From 100 to 5,000 people.

That’s the jump I made going from a 10-year startup marketer to corporate product marketer last year.

It was a big leap. One that came with plenty of growing pains, learning curves, and a healthy (too healthy lol) dose of imposter syndrome.

For anyone making the move to a larger organization than they’re used to, here are a few things that helped me get settled in.

1. Be intentional about meeting people

In a small company, you naturally meet everyone through the normal course of business.

There just aren’t that many of them.

Conversations happen organically, roles overlap, and context spreads fast.

In a bigger company, you could go months without crossing paths with invaluable connections.

In your first couple of months, make the effort to reach out. Set up calls, learn what other departments do, and ask for tips.

People are more willing to chat thank you think

This can feel uncomfortable at first. Especially when everyone’s calendar looks packed and you’re learning who does what.

I definitely hesitated. I was worried I’d be bother people or ask questions I should already know the answers to.

And I couldn’t have been more wrong.

I was surprised by how open and willing people were to set time aside to talk. Not only that, they saw value in learning about my new role—creating a mutually beneficial sharing of context.

Fresh perspectives give the best context

Speaking of context, I found it especially helpful to meet people in adjacent teams.

Colleagues in different departments shared information that had the most impact on my view of the broader org and business.

My version of this comes from a marketing lens. Setting calls with colleagues in product, sales, customer success, and other adjacent departments helped me better understand where marketing sits in the the company’s go-to-market program and how our work overlaps.

Finding your own version of this will give you a well rounded POV and fresh insights to operate with in your new role.

Your work will be more visible

In a bigger company, it’s easy to do good work that doesn’t get seen if you don’t actively build relationships.

Meeting new people and making connections helps create new allies for your projects and strengthens your cross-functional exposure.

Thanks to that context and relationships with people across departments, you’ll be able to represent your projects with more empathy and consideration—an orientation that wins buy-in faster and creates advocates.

Early on in your new big-company role, proactively set time aside to meet new people.

You’ll make new friends, see the bigger picture faster, and elevate your work.

2. Learn how things work before trying to change them

When you come from a startup, your first instinct is to move fast and cut through red tape. That mindset is a huge asset (see below!).

But before you try to reinvent things, take the time to understand why processes exist in the first place.

Some may be broken or offer opportunities to think differently, but others exist for good reason.

Having that historical context will make your ideas land better and have greater impact.

Every process has a backstory

In big companies, processes are rarely arbitrary.

They’re often the result of:

• Scale challenges — e.g. processes and tools that company growth outpaced.
• Compliance or legal constraints — from the tools employees can use to how they communicate, larger companies have stricter operating guidelines.
• Lessons learned the hard way—workflows put in place to prevent previous issues.

Before judging whether something is “wrong” or inefficient, it helped me to ask how it got here.

Understanding that backstory doesn’t mean you have to agree with it. But it does give you credibility when you eventually suggest improvements.

Observation builds credibility before opinion does

Early on, I focused more on listening than fixing.

I asked questions like:

• “How does this usually work?”
• “What’s been tried before?”
• “Where does this tend to break down?”

Those conversations helped me understand processes, and more importantly, the teams and people behind them.

When it was time to share ideas, they landed better. Because they were informed, empathetic, and grounded in a shared reality.

Context makes your ideas stronger

Having historical and organizational context sharpens your point of view.

Instead of proposing abstract improvements, you’re able to say:

• “Given how this team works today…”
• “Based on what’s been tried before…”
• “Within these constraints…”

That framing turns your ideas into collaboration and collective problem solving instead of resembling critique or resistance.

When change happens like that, it sticks better.

3. Bring your smaller-company skills to the table

While it’s important to enter your new role with respect for how things work today, there’s also real opportunity to apply your smaller-company lessons to accelerate in your role and help your organization evolve.

Large organizations want to operate more nimbly.

Your scrappy startup habits, like agile planning frameworks, collaboration styles, project management shortcuts, and quick experimentation, can be gold for your new team.

Don’t be afraid to share them and think outside the box.

I learned not to downplay my startup background or feel insecure about it. Instead, I framed those skills as complementary accelerators to existing processes.

Scrappy doesn’t mean reckless or insufficient

Startup working styles can be misunderstood as chaotic or undisciplined.

In reality, they’re about prioritization, speed, and learning quickly. Not cutting corners or delivering lower quality work.

Thinking this way helps colleagues see expertise earned at a smaller company as an asset.

Adapt, don’t replace

Adapting smaller-company practices to fit within what already exists opens doors.

Rather than proposing we scrap something entirely, I found it more effective to say, “What if we added this?” or “What if we tried it this way?”

For example, rather than totally pushing back on an existing marketing campaign, I proposed new marketing tactics to elevate them—a new channel, a new content type, etc.

Bringing your ideas in as additive helps them become welcomed improvements instead of seemingly threatening replacements.

Start small and let results speak

Big organizations often hesitate to experiment because the cost of failure feels high.

This is where startup thinking can help.

By proposing small, iterative experiments ideas can be tested and grow — pilots, A/B tests, etc.

To my marketing campaign example earlier, trying a new piece of content has less risk than fundamentally changing an existing campaign.

For example, in my first few campaigns in a corporate marketing role, I pushed to test short-form video and a few new asset types. Those assets are now standard parts of our campaign bill of materials.

Finding your own version of this and working your way up to selling in bigger ideas will help you make an impact faster.

4. Give yourself some grace

This part is underrated.

It took me months to feel even remotely comfortable or like I knew what I was doing.

Meetings have more people. Processes have more steps. New acronyms are all over the place.

It feels like everyone else knows what’s going on and you’re just trying to keep up and fit in.

But you’ll get the hang of it.

And before long, you’ll be the one explaining “how things work here” to someone new — a terrifying thought, I know.

Final thoughts

Moving from a small company to a large one is less about changing who you are and more about learning how to apply what you already know.

Focus on building relationships, learning the landscape, and applying your skills thoughtfully in that environment. The rest tends to fall into place.

If you’ve made the move from a small company to a big one, what surprised you most or helped you figure things out?

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