14 years ago I left one of the leading software outsourcing companies & amazing career to start my own company - Empatika. I doubt you know the name of the company, but probably (at least 7m users worldwide) you do know App in the Air, which I have co-founded with my colleagues from Empatika. I have recently left App in the Air after almost 12 years of building & growing the company from scratch. This was amazing and unforgettable experience & I think now is the right time to reflect on it. I will be sharing my entrepreneurial path lessons learned in this blog.
Lets start with the most important question: Why? Why do people leave big companies to start their OWN business?
I think there are 2 primary forces leading to this decision:
Push - you are not happy with the big company: your and your company’s growth rates, compensation, culture, people you work with, sense of injustice, what have you
Pull - some problem or idea keeps you awake at night, makes you think & talk about it with your friends & close ones, even with your customers :)
These 2 forces lead you to start your own business, to dive in this thrilling suspense of starting something new, something of your own, something you can do they way you wanna do.
In addition to the forces listed, there are at least 3 important resources you have to own to avoid rolling back to corporation in the next 3 years:
Cash or passive income - you need to have 12-18 months runway to cover your minimal expenses. Or a loving Brother with such reserve in my case ;-)
Social capital - it is crucial that by the moment you leave you have a social capital to access and encourage others to join your venture. Very few startups are built by a single person, I have observed many promising startups to fail because of founder’s inability to recruit & retain talent. My approach to build such capital was through my teaching in top Moscow universities, through corporate training, and my blog.
Fullstack - as a founder you have to be able (or willing to learn) to do everything necessary to build and sell the first version of your product or service. Probably, you will find this point contradicting with the previous one, but your capacity to do this will significantly impact the early success of your startup because:
You will have power & skill to tailor the product or service based on the initial customer feedback as you struggle to sell it to initial customers
Being able to learn from your co-founder is an important criteria for others to join your startup.
Initially, we offered management consulting services at Empatika, and I could sell and execute the entire project all by myself. BUT, as the African proverb instructs us, “If you want to go fast, go along. If you want to go far, go together“.
Advice to my younger self
Evaluate the “push” & “pull” forces before you leave and use them later to prevent yourself from rolling back to corporate life
Make sure you prepare for the departure: build or acquire the resources mentioned above.
P.S. “You’re either crazy, or know what you’re doing” was my colleague’s response to my farewell letter when leaving the big company in spite of 2008 financial crisis. I had no clue what I was doing :) That’s why, by the way, I got my nickname “Crazy CEO”