There is a different kind of adrenaline that kicks in the moment someone says: ‘We have got a VC swinging by in 10 minutes.’ It’s like startup DEFCON mode. Everyone is suddenly moving with military precision, wiping whiteboards, adjusting monitor brightness, and shoving half-eaten sandwiches under desks.
Welcome to my life at the front desk during visitor hours.
From my experience at the Reception headquarters, I have mastered the subtle art of controlled chaos. One minute I’m printing badges, the next I’m fielding questions like “Can we make the office more fuller?” It’s incredible how fast people suddenly care about aesthetics when someone with a term sheet is about to walk through the door.
Investors are a different breed of visitors. They arrive, either looking like they have stepped out of a Patagonia ad or in blazers and a fully confused look. I once had to explain to a partner from a top-tier fund that yes, this is the actual entrance, and no, we don’t have a receptionist’s bell; we have Slack.
They always ask for water, but never drink it. They nod a lot. They use the word “disruption” as if it were seasoning. I escort them to the glass meeting room, and we suddenly remember that we need Windex. As I walk away, I can feel the collective office holding its breath.
Job candidates are a close second in the visitor panic scale. Especially when someone forgets they’re coming. I’ve watched founders scramble to clean their desks as a nervous applicant stands five feet away. I’ve given pep talks in the bathroom to people prepping for their third-round interview. I’ve even redirected a delivery guy who nearly walked into a product demo because the door was propped open and no one was paying attention.
And then there are the tours. These are usually last-minute, often chaotic and almost always scheduled without checking the actual state of the office. My role here is becoming part tour guide, part bouncer, part stage manager and many other things. I have mastered phrases like :
- “Let me check if they’re available!”
- “Oh, they just stepped out. Can I offer you kombucha?”
- “Please don’t touch that, it’s part of a live demo.”
Regardless of this chaos, I love the work I do here. There’s a strange satisfaction in making it all look effortless, knowing where someone is, who is supposed to be in which room and how to gently redirect someone away from the nap pod room we don’t want investors to see.
So, yes, visitors can be a handful. But every badge I print, every confused investor I gently guide, every awkward handshake I witness, it’s all part of the theatre. And I? I’m the stage manager with the front-row seat and the master key.
Life in a startup isn’t always polished. But I have learnt to fake it for 30 minutes at a time, and that’s what I guess you can call a “skill”.