From 16 Years in Corporate to a $1m SDE Acquisition

I also just started getting this niggle, I think, in the last few years of my time at the company. That niggle became kind of a stronger and stronger feeling. It became more of a yearning.

I hate to call it an itch because I think scratching an itch wouldn't have cut it. So it became such a powerful feeling for me that I couldn't ignore anymore. And at first I couldn't really pinpoint exactly what it was.

And then, you know, I guess, spoiler alert, it was the fact that I needed to be an entrepreneur. And that clarity guided me through sort of the last few years where I laid out a plan for for uh exiting the company i you know left in great terms with my

My boss, I actually transitioned out over a year, which is probably the most extended departure of any job ever. But it was because I didn't really have anything lined up. I had no real plan. I just knew I needed to clear my mind, allow the space necessary for me to kind of design the life I wanted to live.

so you didn't know that you would buy a business necessarily how did that then come across your radar and why did you pursue it yeah so i actually spent maybe the first four months after leaving the job traveling a bit but also uh going through what I thought entrepreneurship and what many others think, uh, and that's building something from scratch.

Um, and as many people have mentioned before in your podcast, that zero to one, uh, journey is, is, is difficult. Uh, it's uncertain the outcome it could come. many years down the road uh and that outcome may not be uh that success that we all hope for so um despite spending some energy and resources and i certainly actually attempted a few startup ideas um the fact that i kind of explored…

variations led me to start kind of picking up on some content. And that's your podcast and also other influencers like Cody Sanchez. And it was like a aha moment, like a eureka moment where I just found this wonderful world of ETA and was immediately sold on the idea.

I often call it the angels singing, Jesus, and it happens to a lot of us. It really does land with an explosion on some of us. Well, what a great path this can be.

One other thing that sort of adds a bit of context to this is I had subscribed to this concept called FIRE. It's Financial Independence Retiring Early.

It's really about a life of freedom and flexibility and time being the most valuable. it also just means uh living you know modestly and and uh ensuring that you're you're not letting lifestyle creep happen um so with that sort of mentality i had i guess you know, by all means, an interest in entrepreneurship, but it didn't have to be a grand version of it.

Like I didn't have to create the next big thing that, you know, sells to private equity or whatever it was. So I saw it as entrepreneurship. I saw it as something I wanted to do...