So You Quit Your Job to Build a Startup

By the third week, you’ll be wondering if you made the right decision. Between fledgling sales, intermittent growth, Facebook removing your ads for violating arbitrary terms and your coworkers back on the mothership posting Instagram stories of their awesome team outings, you might feel a tingle of volts dance across your tongue, not unlike licking a 9-volt battery (cmon, you know you did that as a kid.)

But it’s not all bad. Your new startup hit some great milestones, you had some huge sales days, and growth is still coming in hot. But human feelings are weird and unpredictable. And even success can leave you feeling defeated.

There is no fire like passionNo crime like hatred,No sorrow like separation,No sickness like hunger,And no joy like the joy of freedom.

Gautama Buddha

No sickness like hunger. No fire like passion. In my years of professional programming, I’ve always known the fire of passion. Programming, for me, has always been an insatiable thirst that could never be quenched. My big problem was always that the requirements of professional work meant that programming wasn’t the only thing I had to do. To grow a business (especially for someone else), there is so much more involved.

But when you decide to do your own startup, and you have no money coming in, and everyday you are burning your own personal cash, then you realize the true meaning of “there’s no sickness like hunger.”

On my way out of Uber, my engineering director asked me if I would be able to stay disciplined, wake up, bathe, eat, program, repeat, as I exited for my new venture. In that moment, I thought the question moot, as I had already been putting in 13 hour days for more than a year (with ease). But in my last week of working at Uber, I knew something weird was creeping up. My usual side project work hours were 9pm-1am, and I loved it. But in my last week at Uber, during my normal side project working schedule, something was off. All of a sudden, this app was my new reality. And all of a sudden, i was doing… *gasp*, WORK.

WTF. I DID NOT WORK THIS HARD, AND QUIT MY AWESOME JOB, TO DO… WORK.

But yes I did. And turns out, having a job isn’t really defined by getting paid or not. It isn’t defined by having ownership or not. It isn’t defined by calling the shots.

A job is a place you wake up and go to, because you have to. Because you’re hungry, because there’s passion, because there’s fire. Because there are needs. You wake up, and you do your work. And that’s your job. Maybe you’re getting paid. Maybe you’re getting promotions and raises. Maybe you’re not. Maybe some kid is getting on your Instagram ad and calling you a 40 year old loser for trying to market an app to 17 year olds. Work is work is work is work.

Quitting your job to work on your startup is all well and good, but don’t be fooled. You are just trading one job for another. One set of hours for another. You’re trading the freedom of a steady paycheck, and the predictability of a steady corporate gig for the freedom of having all the time, making all the decisions, and all the unpredictability of an unfunded startup.

“Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself.

Steve Jobs

Maybe there’s light. No sickness like hunger. Maybe quitting your mega-awesome corporate job to pursue your tiny, no name startup is actually akin to a sickness. It’s akin to foolishness. And maybe it’s hunger. It’s probably all of the above. But one thing it’s not is an escape from a job. Because quitting your job to do your startup is just taking on a new job where you work a lot more, and get paid a lot less. And at the end of the day, when you’re exhausted and overworked, you don’t have a dime to show for it. Stay hungry, stay foolish. :)