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Alex Gorman

What jobs did you leave or are planning to leave in order to become a maker?

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Hi Makers, I've become really interested recently in what makes someone leave a job to pursue a career as a maker. I used to be an Archaeologist (its an unusual change I know). I want to know your stories. What jobs did you give up to pursue your dream? What job are you planning to leave once your Unicorn takes off? Why?

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Fernando Nikolic (mindfold.co)
I would love to learn how the previous experience can be useful for becoming a maker. Please leave your reply here!
Rajan Verma (Aarvy)
I lost my full stack developer job due to pandemic. It's been 5 months since I decided to work on self projects only and I have no plan to go back to the job anytime soon.
Alex Gorman
@aarvy Wow, the pandemic has affected so many people in so many different ways. Are you happier now in this situation?
Rajan Verma (Aarvy)
@alex_gorman I am more than happy . I struggle with my side projects during job.But now i m free to learn and make awesome stuffs. Well its been 4 years into the job I am already bored with same role.
Rajan Verma (Aarvy)
@alex_gorman Hahaha U are awesome but I don't consider it success.. I have just started the indie journey. There is much hustle needed in order to survive on my own. Since i m new here, Whatever I have learned I am planning to launch here. Currently done launching with 2 products, more than 20 are on the list. Lol..
Orville Lim
@aarvy How was it so far? I mean can it pay the bill?
Rajan Verma (Aarvy)
@villerdex Well i already have enough to survive for next 2 years, but in these 6 months i am able to grow one of my accounts to 27000+ followers on Instagram and decent 6% of engagement. Its starts paying but not that much. Though i got to learn several ways to grow my products.
Anamika Chaudhary
I was working as a Business Analyst and then Product Manager for past 4 years. I enjoyed it and fell in love with how tech products are created, the fun of working with a team and then seeing something getting developed and then getting used by users is just thrilling for me. I left my job last year and started working on my own product. I would in fact say it was the love for new products created from this job that made me quit it.
Alex Gorman
@anamika_chaudhary2 That I can understand, I did contract PM for a while too. It the variation in the daily job that I agree makes the day livable but its the final product and a happy end user that makes it all worthwhile.
Anamika Chaudhary
@alex_gorman That's true, "happy" end user is important. In jobs at corporates though, usually it's very frustrating when you can't make the decision to make those users happy if they are not, because of all the management around you. That was also one of my reasons to quit and start on my own - take my own decisions!
Alex Gorman
@anamika_chaudhary2 Exactly how I have felt in the past. Too many bureaucratic layers to get through. Almost to the point that anyone in the pipeline has very little idea of what the user wants. So ultimately happy with your decision?
Anamika Chaudhary
@alex_gorman very happy. This life does have its own type of struggles. Earlier in the job I had just stopped caring, but here I care every day about everything so much, that sometimes it's just so difficult to get sleep. But I would still prefer this than that!
Seterek Lakshit
I leave my job software engineering. Start a fund and also build some projects
Alex Gorman
@setereklakshit Awesome so still in the same field/job but on your own terms?
Mirko Maccarrone
Great question Alex! I am planning to take the leap on the 15.03.21 leaving my corporate job as the Head of Growth Marketing for a Chinese Tech Giant and probably the most hated company in the USA (LOL) to embark on a journey to create The Udemy Of Personalized Learning and World's First Tailored e-learning platform of its kind -> The Mastery hub www.themasteryhub.com
Alex Gorman
@mirko_maccarrone Good luck. Setting a date must be exciting. Even leaving "the most hated company in the USA" is a scary leap. I've been to you page, its very nice. I used to work in online education for 2 years. Its the way of the future, even more so after the pandemic.
Mirko Maccarrone
@alex_gorman Thank you Alex, I would love to find out what you are up to as an aspiring maker! Feel free to drop me a line if you are keen mirko@themasteryhub.com or Linkedin Mirko Maccarrone
Alex Gorman
@themasteryhub @mirko_maccarrone Thanks, I would love to get your opinion on my teams work. I'll drop you a line. Bit nervous about plugging it here just yet.
Anyfactor
I used work in mid-management in a retail bank. Left it after a few months of working. Unlike most other people I enjoyed banking and accounting. I just wanted to a bit more free time to pursue a good passive income project and learn from people who are doing business and startups on a day to day basis.
Alex Gorman
@anyfactor Fair point. We always think that there are horror stories which drove people away from other jobs when in fact many people actually enjoyed their work. I will say that one thing I never really understood before breaking out was the benefit of learning from people who are actually doing the creating. I have huge respect for them. The farmer knows far more about their produce than the store that sells it.
Anyfactor
@alex_gorman I think creating a product or performing a service is difficult but selling it and making a profit is an incredibly task.
Alex Gorman
@anyfactor I agree to a point, I'm not devaluing the the sales and marketing side of a product or team (they ensure there is food n the table) I could never do what they do. I feel that it takes all types to make a successful product but its that idea and creation that breathes first life into it. All other aspects of the team help it grow into the product it can be.
Yash Yadav
Here looking for inspiration. My Job sucks(micromanagement, overtime, shitty shifts,.. endless list), and almost every alternative day I'm on the verge of planning to fill exit form and devote more time to the idea that I'm working on. But I don't have money to live more than a few months without salary. Talk about switch? My damn portfolio/Resume (ohyash.github.io) never makes it out of level 0 filtration (ATS/Recruiter eyes). Thanks for listening to my rant. I'll get back to reading responses here.
Rajan Verma (Aarvy)
@ohy4sh well its always hard during initial days. If you really want to switch, i'd suggest to work on your portfolio.. It seems you haven't made right efforts to make it standout. major keywords are missing, deep stuffing, standout projects are essential. If you are from India you should leverage the services like geektrust, instahyre, hackerrank job hackathons, devpost, techgig etc.
Yash Yadav
@aarvy Haven't heard of GeekTrust before, looks good this one. And, also I'll update the portfolio. Thanks a lot for feedback!
I was working for +2 decades as a service provider for marketing & advertising with my own company, but there's no difference to an employee when you deliver nothing else than human brainpower to others. I prefer building something that generates an added value based on automated processes and algorithms. But it took me many years to come up with the right idea, now it's there.
Alex Gorman
@timz_flowers And its something that you are proud of and its yours. If it creates added value as you say then it is worth it. Scary taking the plunge though.
Kevando
I'm curious what it takes to quit being an archaeologist.
Alex Gorman
@kevando_ The realization that its not all its cracked up to be. Its just like any corporate job, you work for someone else who gets the glory. You are under payed and over worked. The systems and ideas are stuck in the 70's. Its also a bit more corrupt than you would think. Thanks for asking though. What did you give up or are you doing what you planned?
Melanie Wertzberger
I left my job as a financial analyst working for a post-series C startup. They had raised $80M in their Series C from large venture capitalists and I was their primary analyst. I made board decks, pitch decks for banks, built budgets and forecasts, and did month end and quarter end reporting. I briefly had a manager that told me "Some day you will get really sick of making other people millions of dollars" and from that day forward, I couldn't get it out of my mind. I always had the entrepreneurship bug but I didn't think I would pursue it so early in my career. Now I am 24 years old founding a company culture application called Shaka (https://joinshaka.com) focused on fostering communities and connections for employees within great organizations which is something my former company struggled with. We launched officially in mid-July and have about 6 months runway saved up. I am working on my product hunt launch now!
Alex Gorman
@melanie_wertzberger Wow. One bit of advice can really change a life. You saw a gap in a system and worked out how to fix it. Now you are making it your passion. The site looks great by the way. Really nice work.
Greg Striblin
I left my career being a Pipeline Inspector to become a Maker. It was a tough decision, and it's tough starting from scratch, but I needed to leave because the work environment became Toxic for myself and my family.
Vincenthaywood
I used to be head of digital at an agency, but then came across that quote about making other peoples dreams come true. Decided to start the my own consultancy that became my personal Angel fund - As I was paid for the consultant you, the money went back into the various builds and experiments. I’m now slowly transitioning my company to the tools I’m building rather than charging time. Reckon one more year. Past two years have been about balancing the client work with the side gig. Getting there!
Alex Gorman
@vincenthaywood Now that is a business model. How do you balance the two? I would worry I would focus on the interesting side gig and "accidentally" forget about my clients.
Vincenthaywood
@alex_gorman oh that happened. Constantly distracted. Took some time to work it out but think I have it nailed. One thing I did was install rescuetime on my Mac, set goals. For instance 4 hours on side gig, 3 on client work. Rescue time allows you to tag what’s things you do and then measure accordingly. Every now and again I’ll get a notification if I’m doing too little on the goals
Alex Gorman
@vincenthaywood Nice! I've been looking for something like that. I'll give it a try, thanks for the info
Sreekar Channapragada
6 years of consulting and co-founding startups. Failed at 8 out of 10. Decided to convert our failures into learnings and finally into a product. Launching in November. Took us almost an year to diverge and converge with the ideas. Imagine an app that helps you become a founder through a read, play, learn approach - that's what we're building. We call it 8infinity.
Alex Gorman
@sreekar Great name. I believe it it was the head of a certain food company who said "persistence is the key to success". Good on you for pushing forward. Good luck with 8infinity.
Chandra Prakash
HR by profession from past 10 yrs. Aspiring entrepreneur. Still afraid to take a leap, but took a small jump and started making No-Code products. Created one. Not launched here yet (probably hesitant). But I'm sure soon I'll feel confident to do so.
Alex Gorman
@cp18101985 I understand being hesitant. I really feel no-code products are the future. The leap can be scary. I'm still building up for mine. Good luck, I'm sure it will be great.
Christopher G
Hey I was an ex-Wall Street Trader, currently doing data science research work at the intersection of medicine and AI. Working on a project to educate people about the quantitative finance industry and figuring out how to create content blog or product regarding my learning. Love being a maker ever since trading has gotten me cognisant that I could build things that generate value. Definitely the dream is to work hard right now so that I have greater optionality to pursue other passions I have in life.
Alex Gorman
@jack_gan My university supervisor always said to me "work hard now, get a great job, then catch on the fun you missed while working so hard". Maybe not the best advice but similar to your idea or really pushing now and reaping the rewards later. I like the idea of an ex-wall street trader having their stock traded on wall street. Kind of poetic.
Nick Duncan
I left a senior management position in a well established marketing company in order to pursue my startup 8 years ago. The startup I was running made enough revenue to support my salary and my wife's salary at the time.
Alex Gorman
@nickduncan 8 years and high up in the company. Again another example of taking the risk and succeeding. I see you actually quite a few products out or coming out. Impressive!
Nick Duncan
@alex_gorman Thanks Alex! Plenty more on the horizon until we find that magical one that shows massive potential!
David Barneda
Before this adventure I was a freelance illustrator.
Alex Gorman
@barneda Wow this is a drastic change. Do you still use your illustration skills today?
David Barneda
@alex_gorman Art is still part of my life, but the focus has shifted. Enjoying the journey, trying to make a difference with komunity.
Samantha Merlivat
Digital Media analyst and Ad tech consultant. I was working with ad tech platforms and media publishers and moved in a totally different direction. Probably not as big a change as coming from Archeology :)
Alex Gorman
@samanthamerlivat Any change is a big change in my books. If you find yourself doing something brand new and it was your choice to do that makes you impressive. So what direction are you going now?
Samantha Merlivat
@alex_gorman hah, well thank you for saying that. I'm curious what direction you're going into then? I moved to edTech, to help children with learning difficulties. It's a very personal issue to me and I find it very rewarding. At some point it became difficult to be as engaged with my day job as I was with this work, even if I loved my old job :)
Alex Gorman
@samanthamerlivat I imagine there is a link between digital media and education. Getting people interested and keeping their interest through imagery and excitement. Would you agree? Very interesting. The project I'm working on now is in health and predictive modeling. I have another idea which would bring in some of my archaeological background. Heres hoping the first one works out.
Adam Waselnuk
I just left my sweet job at Shopify to take a crack at making my own thing. I wrote an article about my decision making process https://www.adamwaselnuk.com/202...
Alex Gorman
@adam_waselnuk That quite the story. Really good read. The 50 hour week is ridiculous. I left a job last year which had me doing the same sort of hours. I think education through D&D might be the way for. Thanks for the read and sharing your story.
Alex Kashi
I have passed up-on many opportunities as a software engineer in order to pursue my vision, self-funded. I am sure a lot of people can relate to the struggle of trying to stay motivated when potential rewards are far in the future.
Alex Gorman
@alex_kashi Its a tough road. Motivation, especially if you are going solo, can be just out of reach. I use a couple apps (which I found here on PH). Keep up the good fight. It will pay off.