THAT TIME I QUIT MY JOB TO START A BUSINESS
It’s been about two months since I quit my cushy full-time job to run a not-at-all-cushy start-up. For anyone who’s currently considering a big career jump, you might want to think twice; or in my case, five times. Much like an irrationally passionate relationship, I went back and forth on my decision to pursue Pressed several times. This is how it went down:
Pressed is a great idea. I’m going to quit my job because I love taking risks!
Ahh, the dream-y stage. The — I hate my 9–5, and wouldn’t it be great to work on my own schedule — stage. I was listening to podcasts and following people who started their own companies, and I thought Pressed had all the ingredients to be successful. At the same time, I was starting to feel complacent in my corporate job and wanted to start something new and scary. I had made up my mind: I would quit my job to pursue Pressed full time.
But how will you make money?
Asked everyone and their grandmas. Don’t get me wrong, this was constantly on my mind too — not how Pressed would make money, but how I, personally, would make money. I knew that it would take a lot of sweat equity AND real $$ equity to start a business. Luckily, I had been saving some money through stock options at work, and knew that I could probably live off of that for at least a few months. But that meant I would never be able to go out to eat, shop, or buy birthday presents. So, I had made up my mind: I would work on Pressed and stay at my 9–5 until Pressed started to make money.
Pressed is getting too hard. I quit.
I woke up many mornings feeling this way. My days looked something like this: 5am wakeup call > edit Pressed, send > work 9–5 > Pressed meetings and writing > sleep at 12am > repeat. I was working 19hrs a day, every day. I was getting headaches regularly, wasn’t exercising, wasn’t eating. I had made up my mind: I was mentally and emotionally exhausted and had to quit Pressed.
I had an amazing boss at my 9–5 that made it a lot harder to leave. She did everything but literally hold my hand while I tried to make this decision. I walked into her office one day and told her I had made up my mind to quit Pressed, and said that I was ready to continue the corporate climb. Then she asked me why I was crying, and I realized I was crying.
I once heard someone say that entrepreneurship = the continuous soul crushing misery of being shot down.
Someone else once told me that being an entrepreneur means that you have to be unreasonably stubborn.
So far, I can say that both of these things are true. I am shot down constantly and yet maintain a stubbornness that is completely irrational. But that moment I realized I was crying in my boss’s office, was the moment I knew that I couldn’t quit Pressed until I really gave it a shot. But, I still had to choose. Working both jobs wasn’t going to cut it, so I had made up my mind:
For real this time.
I left my 9–5 in September and haven’t looked back. Sure, there are days (most days) when I wonder if I’ll ever be able to go on vacation again, but I know this is the right decision for me right now.
Ps. There’s no moral to this story; except that, hard things are hard. Thanks, Coach Casey. If you have a tough decision ahead of you, just make one and don’t look back.
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