I resigned from my job this May. In 2016 I had an idea pop in my head, but I needed to learn a new skill altogether to execute it. So I found a school and signed up for classes. I had to leave work early once a week for about 6 months, but I asked my boss up front before signing up and she gave me approval (I love her!). In April of 2017 I got an LLC, obtained my permits and started to really work on my brand. I sell goods made by hand, so the first leg was actually creating the product. By November of 2018 I had the product ready for sale and made $6k in the last two months 2018.
Through 2019 I landed 4 wholesale accounts, did a pop up event, introduced new skus, and hit 1,000 sales on my online store. I hired a publicist and was featured in Allure magazine, WWD, and several other well known Beaty and fashion blogs. This was all while continuing to work full time and committing all of my free time and a lot of my savings to my company. At the end of 2019 I was making half of what my 6 figure salary was paying with my business, and it was growing.
I was furloughed in March. I was bummed, because not only was my job at risk, sales with my business basically froze. March was the worst month my business ever saw. But I realized I was lucky, I had something a lot of people in the same position I was in didn’t have and that was a business. So with all of the extra time I had in lockdown I just poured myself into my company the way I said I would if I had the time. And April was a record breaking month. And then May broke that record. Then June broke May’s. And by the 9th day of July I broke June’s record.
I was asked to return to work at the very beginning of May. Sure I had a good month in April, but good enough to walk away from my career? Did I really want to bet everything on this one month? I decided it was time to bet on myself and I really believed in what I was doing. So I took the chance. But the chance came after several years of planning and building. And the desire was to build my vision, not to run away from something else. So my advice is to find something you truly love or have a vision for and follow that!