Why I gave up my job at Google

To build an address book application

A little over 6 months ago I was working at Google’s HQ in Dublin, Ireland. I had a nice salary, awesome colleagues, incredible benefits, money to travel the world, was close to getting promoted, had little to no work stress, got free massages during work hours, access to free breakfast, lunch, dinner and travelled to Silicon Valley around twice a year. But that all quickly changed when I quit my job to build Bundly, an address book application for your phone.

Here we are: a Tuesday afternoon, I barely have money to pay my 30 bucks monthly gym membership, my stress levels this week alone have been higher than three years at Google combined, our office is located in an industrial area that most people would describe as demotivating and I can count the number of nights that I have gotten a proper nights sleep in the last six months on one hand. But man, do I love working on my start-up Bundly. I never regretted quitting my job at Google. Ever.

So the question that people often ask me is why did you quit your job at Google? One thing is for sure, my lifestyle didn’t improve. I even had to take a few steps back. To be able to explain to you why I made this decision I will take you through my journey of getting hired by Google.

I grew up in a little town called Swartbroek (the Netherlands) and did my masters in Marketing Management at Tilburg University. I always wanted to start my own company and I had many ideas. But nothing really ever took off.

During my graduation speech one of the professors mentioned that large companies like Google had reached out to him trying to recruit students. I had a keen interest in technology companies and Google then was (and still is) the worlds’ number one employer world wide. So I decided to contact my professor after his speech and asked if he could introduce me to the people at Google. Nine weeks later I checked in at the airport with a one way ticket to Ireland. I got hired.

Nine weeks later I checked in at the airport with a one way ticket to Ireland. I got hired.

Everything changed. I moved into a new apartment, started to earn money, travelled through Asia and North America and made friends from all over the world.

During this time my parents, friends and family would fly over on a regular basis from the Netherlands to visit me. A few times a month I welcomed someone from home who was visiting Dublin — curious to find out what the city and Google had to offer.

To make it easy for my friends and family to contact me I shared my new Irish phone number with my friends and family on Facebook. During that time I still used my Dutch number on WhatsApp so it wasn’t obvious to everyone that I had switched to an Irish number as well.

It was during this time that I first experienced how difficult it was to communicate something as simple as my new Irish address and phone number. Not to strangers but to the people that I knew. I had been repeatedly communicating the same information across multiple apps at different times. But still when someone came over to visit I heard the same questions asked: “What is your address?”, “What is your Irish number?”, “Where is Google?” and “How do I get to your house?”. It simply was a mess.

Every time someone came over to visit I heard the same questions asked: “What is your address”, “What is your Irish number”, “Where is Google?” and “How do I get to your house?”.

It didn’t matter how many times I sent a WhatsApp message, (re-)posted my details on Facebook or sent e-mails. They simply kept asking the same question over and over again. For them it wasn’t that big of a deal after all - they were only traveling to Dublin once every few months. But to me it was frustrating.

I remember thinking: “Wouldn’t it be great if I myself could update my phone and address details on the phones of all these people”? This would be more convenient for everyone. My contacts’ didn’t have to open their address book and change information and I would be assured that the people I knew had all the information they needed. This simple idea wouldn’t leave my mind.

Somewhere during my crazy adventures at Google, (I for example had the honour to play drums during the Google sales conference in Las Vegas where Bruno Mars and Will.I.Am headlined), I randomly met a developer called Javier. We started talking and I remember being deeply impressed by his technical skills and business knowledge. I knew from the first day I met him that he would be able to help translate my ideas into a real company. He was the co-founder I had been looking for.

Javier and I talked for hours about companies we admired, the start-ups he founded and we even explored working together creating a Tinder-like app for clothes, together with two Google colleagues. But we soon realised that we only wanted to give up our jobs for something that would impact a lot of people. A lot.

After working with Javier for a while I decided to pitch him my idea for an app to share contact information. Because he had similarly moved from Spain to Ireland, he had experienced the same frustration as I did when it came to friends and family asking for contact information.

Javier asked me many questions on the scalability of the idea and challenged underlying assumptions. We then moulded the idea through a few iterations into a concept that would act like a digital standard for contact information. An app that almost could act like an online ID. A platform where you could finally update your contact information directly on your contacts’ devices.

We decided to build a platform where you can let your contacts’ update their contact information for you.

The idea is simple: a Facebook-like network consisting of contacts instead of friends and where your profile contains your contact information instead of pictures. We immediately saw a ton of opportunities associated with the creation of an infrastructure like this. For example, in a business setting the ancient business card would be redundant as it was possible to add contacts with three clicks, like adding a friend/colleague on Facebook/LinkedIn.

In the upcoming weeks this idea took over my world. All of a sudden it seemed that everywhere companies and organisations were asking me for my contact details. My doctor, bank, car rental agency, domain host, lawyer and even the government all had notices up or had directly requested me to update my contact information for them.

We started to realise that our platform could be used for so much more than just updating friends and family. Imagine one platform to communicate your contact details to everyone that matters to you? And even potentially your payment details? One account. One place. All your details centralised.

Not only would it be a lot easier to manage contact details, it would also be a more transparent. We let users decide what information they want to share with whom. We could make the world a little bit easier and safer to potentially a lot of people. We instantly had a ton of feature ideas.

Okay, so we knew we had found an idea that would solve a problem and we saw opportunities for it to scale. Our initial math was simple: solution + scalability = impact. We felt we were able to build a small piece of the future that everyone could benefit from. We could make it easier for people to share contact information and we could make the lives of businesses easier on-the-go as well.

Solution + Scalability = Impact

Although I absolutely loved my job at Google this idea of building something that would make the life’s of so many people easier wouldn’t let me go. I felt I have had all the ingredients around me to do so. I had all the ingredients ready to make an impact.

And even though the risk of failing was and still is considerably high, I keep telling myself I am ‘only’ 26. I am not married (but do have an awesome, supportive girlfriend), I don’t have kids (that I know of), I don’t have a mortgage and recruiters are still reaching out to me offering jobs. So it isn’t really about me anymore, but about the people that could potentially benefit from Bundly.

We have just started and I love the idea that Bundly could potentially make your life easier too. And that’s what keeps me going. To me that’s worth more than any Fortune 500’s benefits.

Shameless plug: you can register your username now at our website if you want to try out Bundly or like to support us!