I Quit My Job

For the longest time, I really resisted the idea of being an independent consultant.

I was born to do more with my life. I have the pedigree to build a billion dollar business. Anything less would be settling. Settling for a lack of ambition. Settling for a lack of creativity. Just settling.

There’s a full OneNote of failed business ideas I’ve tried. SaaS and tech that’s been built and beta tested but never quite sold. All on the side.

Here’s a recent example: Return to office software. January 2021 – August 2021. Jeff built the beta. We attended a virtual facility management conference. Tyler cold emailed our way to two beta customers. Then Omicron hit in July. All return to office was halted. Facilities lost all budget. And, ultimately, the industry and problem were too boring to care about to keep going.

Maybe I’m not an ‘ideas guy’. Maybe I’m a good builder and operator.

At minimum, I should buy a business.

Ooh that sounds impressive. Right?

Alexander did it and he’s making good money.

Have you been down the rabbit hole that is BizBuySell? Fascinating place. Laundromats, dry cleaners, tree service companies, marketing agencies, etc. all for sale. Established businesses that you can walk into an start taking a paycheck. Sure it’s not a billion dollar business I feel like I’m capable of building but it’s not nothing. It might actually be something.

Believe me. I explored. I did my research. Filled out NDAs, spoke with business brokers, and, for some, received multiple demos of licensable saas. I seriously considered buying into a background checking franchise and then the economy continued to tank in October. All-In warned me of inflation and recession.

All this searching probably did more harm than good. Wound me up. Made me feel trapped and anxious.

Mid-day in October my wife found me face first on our bed seemingly paralyzed. I was at my limit. Couldn’t handle another email with 2 pages of feedback on a PowerPoint. Unhappy. Let me quit, please.

– edit: I removed a paragraph of me complaining about the situation. net: not the right place for me –

We agreed I’d wait out my signing bonus. 3 months to avoid paying back $10k seemed like a fair trade. Give me time to decompress and reflect. I still didn’t have a plan but we agreed on a destination.

During that time, I found a part of Twitter that sparked something inside me I had been resisting.

Independent consulting.

Build a 1-person consulting business. Low overhead. Pick and choose your clients. Work remotely.

Ooh, now that’s appealing

One of my big goals is a lifestyle where I decide if I’m taking vacation or not and don’t need to ‘get it approved’ even if ‘it’s always approved, just fill out the form’.

I dream of being on the beaches of Spain this August. Is that lifestyle possible?

But doing something like independent consulting felt so small; it went against everything I thought I wanted. I kind of hated the idea of staying in the ecosystem I helped create. Isn’t there more for me? Won’t I be judged that I didn’t go for a moonshot?

I reached out to my old boss. There was a job opening at my old company that I thought I could be a fit for. During that call, he brought up that I should consider doing it myself.

A huge vote of confidence.

Maybe there’s more to this than I’m seeing.

So I set out to see if independent consulting could provide me what I think I’m looking for.

Before committing, I decided to do a quick test. Could I find a client without any of my relationships? Is there even work out there for the small guys? I know it’s there for the big ones. I drove $2M in sales last year for a big firm. But they were branded and had bodies. Could I do it for myself?

I signed up for one of the freelancing websites. On the very first day I found a gig and applied. Phone call scheduled for the next day. Bid won. I landed my first client. This was small hourly work. 8 hours here. 2 hours there. Easy money. Could pay for a vacation but not my mortgage and daycare.

Then something else happened.

I found a second client on the freelancing website. And this one had some oomph to it. Started off as hourly work but I pitched the second phase as fixed fee. The work was in my wheelhouse but required some extra fire power. That’s where my deep network in this space came in. I quickly found the foremost expert to support and we were off to the races.

5-figure project that had clear line of site to repeatable work while only working a few hours a week.

The best part? I felt excited again. The possibilities. The opportunities. This could work.

I helped build the ecosystem. I already was a consultant inside the ecosystem. I’m winning work on my own brand. But making the mental leap from ‘this is cool’ to ‘ok let’s bet the house’ took weeks.

First, I told my wife. I’m like 60% sure I want to do this. See the receipts? There’s more out there. Then I started telling my close friends. ‘I’m like 80% sure I want to do this.’ And, like good friends, they were encouraging. I met some old high school friends at a reunion. ‘I’m 90% sure I’m quitting’. And then one day, I was at 100% and put in my notice.

Now I’m off to the races. Maybe this will be 3 months or 3 years or 30 years. Who’s to say? But right now it’s an exciting anxiety riddled experiment. One where I can explore other avenues.

But the most important thing, in my mind, is that I’m actually doing something.

Something is better than nothing. Doing is better than talking.

We’re doing the dang thing!

And who knows, maybe this gives me the space to build that billion dollar business. I’d be happy with just sipping a tinto de verano on the beaches of Spain.

I’m fine either way.