Why I Left My Own Company
When you should do that too.
Seeing a founder leaving his own company is not something we see every day. For many people, that isn’t something expected to happen. However, as I learned, this happened more often than we realize.
As I was considering doing that, I read about other entrepreneurs’ stories that left their own companies. Each one of them had their reasons. It’s not because you founded a company that you should be part of it forever.
I founded Cupcake Entertainment in 2012, a gaming startup with the purpose to help people exercise their brains while having fun. We did that by developing free-to-play games for mobile devices and Facebook.
One thing that inspired me to start my own company was when I watched The Social Network movie that tells how Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook. I also read much content about startups, and, influenced by all of this, I wanted to join this world.
After two years of working hard but few results, all of my three partners gave up the entrepreneurial journey, and I became the sole partner. I was not expecting that to happen, and I didn’t want to give up.
My company became profitable in the middle of 2015 and then started to pay me a fixed salary. It was three years getting almost nothing. At that time, I lived with my mom, which helped me a lot with my expenses.
In 2017 we raised US$1 million, and the financial situation of the company changed drastically. I was on TechCrunch! That was awesome! Everybody’s salary in the company started to increase, and I could leave my mom’s house and live by myself.
The surprising dangers of growth
“It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.” — Marcus Aurelius
I had tremendous pressure to keep the company growing in 2018. I didn’t know at the time, but I was facing burnout while all of this was happening. My performance was not the same.
Instead of taking a vacation to recover my energies, I choose to keep solving the company’s problems. That didn’t work, and in the middle of this chaos, I fired 60% of my company.
I started therapy the day I turned 30 years old. Looking for help was something beneficial for me and changed my life. I started recommending the same to everybody near me. Therapy helped me question everything that I have been doing for the past couple of years.
I realized that I was doing much stuff expected for someone in a growing company. Not necessary things that I wanted to do. You will often have to do something you don’t like in your company, but that shouldn’t be the rule. I was not enjoying my work anymore.
It is sad to found a company but not enjoy working in it. I decided to change my routine at work where I could keep doing the things necessary for the company to grow and doing the things that I enjoyed the most.
After taking a week off in February 2019 in Uruguay, the company was doing ok again. I decided to take another week off in May 2019, this time in Peru.
That week, I thought a lot about what I wanted for my life, especially professionally, and I started to think about what I could do. I then realized that nothing that I was thinking was related to my current company.
I noticed that I didn’t want to work with games anymore. I was never a gamer. I don’t have a console like PlayStation. I was in a position in my company that, besides CEO, I was leading all the games. I didn’t want to do that anymore. I believed that if I continue where I was, I wouldn’t be able to find what I wanted for myself.
Because of that, I decided it was time for me to leave my own company. I shared the news with my partners and employees and moved on.
A new journey
“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” — Marcus Aurelius
The main reason founders leave their companies is related to the company size. Many founders prefer to work in small environments, and as their companies grew, they don’t like the new environment and, because of that, they decide to leave.
You need to know what kind of company you want to have for yourself. If you want to work in a small one, maybe you don’t need to worry so much about growth as I did. People think that a company should always be growing, but that is not necessary. You have to understand what is best for you.
I always thought that I was supposed to be the guy that builds a billion-dollar company. I don’t want that anymore.
I don’t regret leaving my own company. My life changed a lot for the better since I left it. You don’t have to keep working in your own company if that doesn’t make you happy anymore. Don’t waste time on things that you don’t want to do.
Some people thought that I was giving up my company, but I don’t feel that way. I feel that I started a new path with new challenges for my life.
It is not because something is in a way that it needs to be the same way forever. The human being doesn’t like to change. It scares them. However, many times, changes are necessary to grow, either as a person and as a company.
It was tough for me to leave a successful company that I founded after more than seven years leading it.
