How much risk have you taken?
A bachelor friend of mine, who comes from affluent background left his job at Microsoft and joined another established start-up(which was about to get acquired) and his facebook wall reads "It was a very tough decision".
I thought "Really"?
Entrepreneurs take much bigger risks when they leave their full time corporate job to chase start-up dream and plunges into unknown with the hope that he would be able to raise money in next 3 months and everyone would be fine, including wife and kids (who would no longer have best medical coverage) and are not going for vaccation this year..and not sure when they would next. Maybe they would have to leave the country if nothing works out...
Whats your story? Want to share how much risk have you taken and what was the lowest point from which you came back?
14 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 27.8 ms ] threadThe come back is something of a work in progress. I think it's in that "getting worse before it gets better" phase of the film. I hope.
I share not because it's an insane story, but because I'd love to hear others' answers.
By the way this was obligatory service, we didn't ask for it.
18 months back I quit the job second time to take a shot again at entrepreneurship.
I failed fist time 4 years back.
In my last organisation I was leading a national team of more than 400 persons. Almost got my promotion letter (If I hadn't quit for 2 more weeks).
Have almost lost my immediate family due to this decision of mine.
18 months and I have still not given up.
The good news is that I am able to build my own side-project which I hope will gain traction in the near future.
Post-graduation, I worked at MIT in another neuroscience lab for 1.5 years. I'm co-author on another paper which is going out for review soon.
Despite my nearly six years in research, I've decided getting a PhD in biology is a fool's game - I'm quitting in two weeks to become a freelance developer. I've squirreled away $7k in savings (~20% of my yearly salary) which should give me about a 6-8 month runway to get this freelance thing off the ground.
Doesn't seem that risky to me, but everyone thinks I'm goddamned crazy for doing it.
(I'm now an entrepreneur after quitting my job 6 months ago.)
Worst comes to worst, I'm prepared to work at a coffee shop or some other part time job as well. Just need to get out of my current soul-crushing position! :)
If you dislike your present job then more the reason that you optimize fir your next job and let your boss worry when to stop your "funding". :) ... Seriously look at your present job as funding for as long as you can.
The real problem with my current job is that it's both time intensive (50-60 hours/week) and pays next to nothing ($32k pre-tax, living in Boston). I should probably be working in the evenings to save more money, but I'm trying to work on my coding skills so I can actually make the transition.
The job originally made perfect sense if I wanted to stay in academic biology, since I would now have a killer recommendation from MIT. Hell, the salary is better than grad students! But since I want to change careers, it is a complete dead end that I need to get out of.
Once you dont have money coming in on a regular basis you have to deal with all the psychology that goes with it. Its hard - really hard.
Also cut back to 40 hours a week in your day job ... I mean you dont care right? Use that time to start doing coding work. But get to paid work first and get bunch of clients.
If you cant then I would say at the very least go stay with your parents or anyone who would have you. $7K is really not enough.
I stuck it out 1 year extra when I hated my position. And I'm very very happy I did that.