Thank HN: 127 days since I asked for your advice.
Since that time, things have been going well. One of willheim's suggestions was to reach out to alumni of my alma mater, and that one turned out to be the winner.
I felt strange at first, but I started sending emails and LinkedIn messages saying "I'm new to Philadelphia and I see you also graduated from my alma mater. Would you mind grabbing a cup of coffee with me, and maybe giving me a little bit of your local wisdom?"
I did this a ton of times, and wound up with three very positive outcomes:
1) I got a social life, which was emotionally fantastic.
2) One of my fellow alumni works in HR and they gave me great, honest feedback about my resume and some of the cover letters I'd written that (I believe) made it much easier for a hiring manager to understand what I bring to the table.
3) Another one of my fellow alumni tipped me off about an unadvertised position in their firm that's a great fit for me as a first step back into corporate life.
tldr; 127 days later I have a network of local friends and acquaintances, a great job, and my debt is shrinking at a $6k/month clip. And a large part of this is because I took willheim's advice about reaching out to alumni networks that (honestly) I never would've thought to tap.
46 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 89.1 ms ] threadAgreed, this is key. Meeting people in person has amazing power. Call it serendipity if you will. For it to work, make sure you tell the other person that you are not looking for a job at their company.
I know I'm repeating myself, but http://letslunch.com does exactly that for entrepreneurs and tech people. Serendipity, no hidden-agenda get-togethers.
The VIP stuff (meet Drew Houston and Trip Adler) is just the icing on the cake.
Either way, I just signed up to see what it is all about, and +1 for the Princess Bride reference.
For those of you who have lived in the same place for a while, you can still get that 'new city' spark back! Take a day off of work and do your city's touristy things. Bring your camera.
You might be amazed at the history you'll learn about the place you live!
on a side note, perhaps this is a benefit of attending college that a lot of the anti-education crowd here on HN might not realize --- connections with alumni from your alma mater. of course, you still need to take massive initiative like OP did, but at least that option is available to you.
Another question. Paying down your debt at $6K/month is fantastic (implying you are above and beyond you and your spouse's living expenses and the interest on the debt). However, based on your last post that debt was $70K credit card and $30K IOU to co-founder.
Now that you are back on your feet, have you considered declaring bankruptcy or defaulting on the credit cards? It'll ruin your credit and stress you out, but saving $70K while building a $6K a month nest-egg seems worth considering.
I hate suggesting that people walk away from their debt, but 7 years of bad credit vs. $70K today is the trade. Bankruptcy / consumer credit laws exist to help the little guys; the ABS traders and investors who package and buy your debt price in a certain delinquency / default rate in all their credit card deals. That comes from my own experience working on a hedge fund ABS desk. You'll probably miss the $70K a lot more than the people who have an unsecured claim on it.
Edit: OP responded with a firm "NO" to defaulting on the debt. Congrats again, much respect!
Maybe he thinks he is part of a society larger than just himself, perhaps he has some kind of moral framework, some notion of wrongness, or some self-respect that would stop him from reneging on his promises.
Not to mention that declaring yourself bankrupt when you have such a good income is almost certainly illegal.
Morals work two ways.
No. While I believe bankruptcy is an incredibly useful tool to help people take risks and recover from bad situations, I don't want to abuse it. I have plenty of earning power, and a year and a half of modest living won't kill me.
Y Combinator? Seriously, it's' the future graduate school that teaches you how to be an entrepreneur and pays you to do it! You know what the kinship to fellow alums is like in the Y Combinator network :-)
We're living extremely frugally when it comes to absolutely everything other than career-related expenses, and my fiancée is covering all of the shared bills.
If you saw our apartment, you'd probably guess that our combined income is around 10% of our actual combined income. (It's terrible, but it's a short, well-lit, heavily populated walk to the Broad Street Line, so it seems safe.)
2. Why is your name in green on HN?
The entire reason for dating sites, more or less, is to create a list of people who are open to a cold-email for dating and facilitate the process.
It looks fun, but I'm slammed for the next month or so and can't justify taking the time off for events that are only tangential to my career at the moment.
That said, I don't know how to replicate my success in that matter, so I don't have much to say about it on HN.
Enjoy Philly!
My thanks to you, again.