Why Dropping Out of Law School to Work for a Startup Was the Best Decision I Ever Made

The Explorations of a Marketing Ninja

A little over a month ago, I turned down a $160,000 job opportunity and dropped out of a top-ten law school to work for basically nothing at a startup. Many would consider that decision unthinkable. In a time when law school students were struggling, I had done pretty well for myself. I had scored the coveted Google internship after my first year and had locked down a high-paying job. Despite all that, I turned it down.

So why did I do it? I could no longer fathom going through the motions of life as a young attorney working the 80-plus hours a week for something that excited me as much as two cockroaches copulating. What I wanted to do was share stories, explore identities, and help companies grow. In sum, branding and marketing. So, with a mix of fear and excitement, I became a Marketing Ninja.

When I met Todd Beauchamp nearly a year ago at a tech event, I did not expect to be a law school dropout by the year’s end. Let me describe him more for you: forty-one-year old, unassuming techie nerd who had a wry humor so eerily similar to my own that we joked during our first encounter that we were each others’ alter egos. Todd had been a “star engineer” at Apple who ultimately left the company to create the Unity entertainment system. Last year, Unity won the Innovation and Design Award at CES and was heralded as a top 8 game-changing product of 2012 by Gear Patrol.

Todd’s mantra is connecting people to their passions. He believes that passion will allow you to do anything. Yes, I admit that type of wishful thinking edges into the dangerous boundaries of cornballism. I’m the type of person who flees from all things sappy, so I know exactly how squeamish you get when I throw out buzz words like “passion.” Nonetheless, once I let go of my aversion to cornballisms and tested out this mantra for my own, what I used to reject as the impossible stuff of disillusioned dreamers began to happen.

I had no experience in marketing, but Todd saw my passion and willingness to learn. He offered me a job at his company as Marketing Ninja. The title was of my own choosing–a mix of Silicon Valley talk and my ninja-like feistiness.

The magic began. Other people started picking up on those vibes of energy which I once thought law school had sapped out of me for good. A big Silicon Valley venture capitalist began mentoring me (I won’t tell you who yet, as that’s to build your anticipation for later posts). I hung out with David Morgenthaler, one of the fathers of venture capitalism in America, at his private residence–just him, me, and another awesome nonagenarian named Bob Wilson who liked to sprinkle conversations with proverbs and an Irish jig or two.

It’s only been a little over a month at my new gig, but today I am serving as an invited speaker for a panel on innovation and entrepreneurship at the TechLAB Innovation Center. I will be sitting with some big names: Garage Ventures Co-Founder Bill Reichert, Vidtel CEO Scott Wharton, angel investor Marc Burch, and Venture Capitalist Joyce Chung. Not too shabby for a law school dropout with roughly a month of marketing ninja experience. How scared am I? Earth-shatteringly scared. But ninjas don’t let fear stop them.

I draw to the end: to the downtrodden and uninspired; to the security-chasers and worriers; to the unimpassioned law students and unmotivated professionals; to the kids living their parents’ dreams and not their own; to the person I was just two months ago, walking the law school halls like an unfeeling drone, it’s not too late. The decision to take the plunge is not going to be easy. For me, leaving law school was one of the most difficult decisions in my life that hit all of my fears: parents’ disappointment, financial insecurity, a high-risk venture that could result in failure. In fact, I still haven’t even told my dad that his daughter won’t be a lawyer anymore. However, the ultimate question came down to this: was I going to pass through this world just surviving or actually living? As you know, I chose the latter. Never made a better choice in my life.

I began this blog to track my growth in the tech world. Whether that leads to failure or success, you will see it all. Wish me luck!