An interview with Polina Marchenko. Polina is a self-described geekette, product leader and multiple startup founder. Polina saw the dark side of startup life in Berlin, suffering burnout due to the intense hustle culture. She has since moved to the US, and is now focusing her efforts on her new startup whilst ensuring that she does it in a sustainable manner.

We talk about a lot, including:

• How she developed a passion for entrepreneurship from an early age and through higher education
• What it was like being a junior PM at a startup and whether it helped her build her hard skills
• Her struggles with hustle culture, unrealistic expectations and inevitable burn out
• How she used the lessons from her first startup to make sure she didn't make the same mistakes again
• How she accidentally moved to Silicon Valley and ended up in a hacker house with 14 other hustling entrepreneurs
• The problems with hustle culture and why she's actively trying to get her friends to step out of it
• How a passion for community building and desire to connect led her to create 3 new startups in a pandemic
• How she used her past startup experience to decide it was time to park a couple of startup ideas and concentrate on one
• How she's helping people unleash their potential, fight imposter syndrome, and how important this is to her values

"Resumes are overrated, show me what you've built"

Check out the SIDE PRJCT website.

You can reach out to Polina on LinkedIn.