I think submitting a two-week notice is something every wantrepreneur dreams of. Not necessarily because their current work situation is bad, moreso because the prospect of actually making that leap and going ‘all in’ on their personal project is exciting.
Or So I thought
Unfortunately, I didn’t give a two-week notice, a two-week notice was given to me. This actually ended up being a great thing; more on that in a second.
It was 3 days after I had launched a landing page. It was like any other workday, except the head of HR was visiting our office. We were a small ~15 person team that had been acquired by a larger company 2.5 years prior.
We still operated largely independently in our own satellite office, so having HR stop by was out of the norm.
We get summoned into a meeting, not being told what it was for. As we quietly wait for all members of our team to cram into the conference room, my phone is violently vibrating. Not like rhythmic vibrations of receiving a phone call — it was sporadic and never ending.
When setting up my landing page, I initially configured email notifications anytime someone signed up for Cloud Campaign’s beta. These were all emails for people interested in this new product I proposed.
From a Leap to a Push
As I’m sure you’ve already concluded, the conversation went something like this:
We’ve put a lot of thought into it, and we’ve decided that we will be restructuring the organization. As a result, the San Mateo office will no longer exist.
Out of left field, 15 people just lost their jobs. Silence struck the room as we waited for details to follow.
Since only we knew the technology, and the parent company was interested in keeping it alive, the next few weeks were dedicated to training other individuals within the org, in hopes of a clean hand off.
Needing our assistance, we technically still had another month and a half on the job, and we would have healthcare for another couple months.
At this point there was no looking back. There would be no better time to do what I’ve always aspired to do — start a company. The transition period gave me time to get everything lined up, and come June 3rd, I hit the ground running.
The Outcome
I think most people would initially see being laid off as a negative, but in reality there are many benefits in comparison to quitting.
The two main ones being a severance package and COBRA health care.
As a severance package, I received 11 weeks of pay, 2 months of healthcare up front, and cash compensation for any unused vacation days. In addition, I sold all of my stock in the company, and there I had my seed money to bootstrap Cloud Campaign.
