Why I Quit My Job to Start a Tech Company

Author:Vinicius Vacanti

August 3, 2011

Vinicius Vacanti is co-founder and CEO of Yipit, a service that finds you great local deals by learning your tastes. Here he shares the lessons he learns as a first-time entrepreneur in Silicon Alley.

 

 Back in November of 2006, before NY Mag and TimeOut put startups on the cover, before the “tech bubble”, before Twitter and Foursquare were popular, before working at a startup in NY was considered a reasonable thing to do, I was a private equity investor for a $1.6 billion fund called Quadrangle Group.

It was just my third year out of college and I made a little over $250,000. For a Brazilian immigrant who spent most of his childhood kind of worried he would have to do physical labor, I felt like I had really made it. My job was challenging (making investing decisions always is) and I worked with some really smart and motivated people.

But, beyond “making it”, I was comfortable. After a year of private equity investing, I felt like I was good enough to do it for the long haul. While I’m sure there would be a few unexpected twists and turns, I sort of knew what the next 20 years of my life were going to be like and it looked pretty good.

There was only one little issue. It turned out that I didn’t really love money.

After 18 years, my mom had successfully passed along an immigrant guilt towards buying anything lavish for myself. So, my expenses weren’t really growing in proportion to my income. And, at least for me, I didn’t see money as a metric of success the same way Warren Buffet does. When it’s all said and done, I didn’t want to be measured by how much money I had accumulated but by what I had built.

But, when you’re making more money than you know what to do with, you tend to procrastinate on any big decisions. Well, at least until you’re reminded of what else is possible.

How I Woke Up

My company, Quadrangle, organized a private conference every year for the media and telecom industry. This was not just another conference, it was ridiculous.

I realized how ridiculous it was when I got an email with the list of attendees. Every major media company executive was coming. Brian Roberts from Comcast, Steve Ballmer from Microsoft, Jeff Zucker from NBC and media celebrities like Katie Couric, Jerry Seinfeld and Harvey Weinstein. While journalists weren’t allowed to cover the conference, Andrew Ross Sorkin, of the NY Times, was given permissions to write-up aquick blurb about the conference.

I was really excited and had barely slept the night before. The dress code was business formal and I walked into the Pierre Hotel wearing my best suit and power red tie.

I soaked in the scene for a few seconds trying to find the first person I was going to talk to. And, then, it hit me. Why would they want to talk to me? They were the heads of major media companies, I was a 25 year-old finance guy. They didn’t want to talk to me, they wanted to avoid me. I wasn’t doing anything important, anything that could impact their companies. They didn’t care about my suit or my power red tie.

So, for the next 30 minutes, I just awkwardly walked around the room trying to listen in on the conversations people were having. When the panels started, I took a lonely seat in the back.

After listening to a few panels comprised of 50+ year-old media executives, the audience was looking forward to the fresh perspective of the next panel on new media.

The two guests were in their 20′s. I almost couldn’t believe that two people roughly my age had been invited to talk in front of all of these important people. And then, even more shocking, they had all of their undivided attention. All of the 50+ year-old media executives were mesmerized, excited and scared of what they had built and what it meant for them. One was Chad Hurley, fresh off his recent sale of YouTube to Google, and the other, wearing sandals, was a still unknown pre-”The Social Network” Mark Zuckerberg.

When the panel ended, media executives came up to them to talk about working together, get advice on their business. I just stood in the background watching.

I was floored.

They were building something. They were changing how the world communicated. And, they had done it in just a few years without raising significant capital to get started. They willed their services into existence.

What was I doing? Could I do what they had done? Could I build something as significant as they had?

Yeah, right.

I had never built a tech startup. I had never even built a website. What did I know about product management, web development, and user interfaces?

I had a high-paying finance job. I was on my way. It was too late. I had no idea what it meant to start a company and the most likely outcome was failure.

On an expected value basis, the obvious decision was to stick with finance.

I was where I should be.

But, as the days went by, I kept thinking back to the conference. A scary idea started creeping into my thoughts: what if I could build something? Wouldn’t I always wonder? Wouldn’t I regret it? Wouldn’t it eat away at me over the years?

And, that’s when I realized that I didn’t actually know if I was good enough because I hadn’treally failed in life (at least not professionally). Most people don’t really fail. We tend to take the job that we think we’ll succeed in. We are hesitant to reach. And, if we do reach and succeed, then we don’t reach again.

The only way to know how good you might be at something is to fail trying it.

And, that’s when I decided it was time to test my limits. It was time to really reach. It was time to quit my safe job and walk straight into almost certain startup failure.

I had no idea how to start a successful tech company, but I was going to try. I was going to step into thatarena. And, whether or not I triumphed or got knocked down, I didn’t really care much. I wanted to know the bounds of my abilities.

So, What Happened?

It’s now 4 years since I left Quadrangle. Did I fail? Hell, yes. I got knocked down many, many times. For the first 2 years, I had no idea what I was doing and was just swinging blindly. But, every time I fell, I learned why.

After two and a half years of failure, we launched the third version of Yipit and it took off. We’ve now raised funding twice including the most recent $6 million round this summer. Yipit is growing, we have a strong vision of where we’re going and we’re building an amazing team (join us!).

But, perhaps, one of the sweetest moments was that I was invited to the latest Quadrangle conference. Not as a panel speaker, we’re nowhere near that. But, as part of a session where three startups pitch Barry Diller for 3 minutes and then he grills you with questions in front of the entire audience of media executives. It was clearly terrifying but it went well. At the end of the session, Barry picks the startup he thinks is most like to succeed and he picked Yipit.

When I stepped off the stage, still kind of shaking from the presentation, media executives came up to me talk about what we were working on and how we might be able to work together. I couldn’t believe they were coming to me (and I wasn’t even wearing my power red tie).

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翻译：

为什么我辞职去创办一个科技公司

本文是从 Why I Quit My Job to Start a Tech Company 这篇文章翻译而来。

回溯到2006年11月，早在创业公司出现在NY Mag和TimeOut等杂志封面上之前，在“互联网泡沫”之前，在Twitter和Foursquare开始流行之前，在我踌躇满志的在纽约一家创业公司里工作之前，我在一家拥有16亿美元资产、叫做Quadrangle集团的地方工作，我是一名私募股权投资人。

那是我离开学校的刚刚第三个年头，我的收入超过25万美元。作为一个巴西移民，童年一直处在一种担心以后只能做体力活的忧虑中，现在，我感觉，我已经事业成功了。我的工作富有挑战性(做投资决策永远都是这样)，我和一群极其聪明和上进的人一起工作。

但是，除了“成功”外，我的生活还很安逸。在做了一年的私募股权投资后，我心里想：这个活不错，也许能做一辈子。虽然我相信生活中肯定避免不了各种波折，但对于后20年的生活，我感觉是一片光明。

唯一有点小问题是，我发现自己对钱不是那么的着迷。

在移民美国的18年后，妈妈终于消除了移民身份带来的自卑感，不再给我买装裱身份的奢侈品。所以，我的开支和我的经济收入是完全不匹配的。而且，至少我是这样：我并不把金钱作为一个人成功与否的标准。当人们评价我时，我不希望人们以我收敛了多少财富为标尺，我希望他们更看重我的事业成就。

但是，当你挣的钱超过了你能支配的数量后，你会发现自己在一些重大的决策上开始变的拖拉。至少你不再去想生活还会有另外一种可能。

我是如何觉醒的

我所在的公司，Quadrangle，每年都会组织了一次传媒和电信界的封闭式研讨会。这可不是普通的研讨会，那是你想象不到的。

当我得到了一份出席者的名单后，我才意识到这个会议的魅力。所有重要传媒公司的老总都来了。美国规模最大的e有线电视服务商康卡斯特电信公司的Brian Roberts，微软的Steve Ballmer，NBC的Jeff Zucke，以及一些新闻界名人，如Katie Couric,，Jerry Seinfeld， Harvey Weinstein。纽约时报的Andrew Ross Sorkin 被授权对会议独家进行简要报道，其他新闻记者不允许进入会场。

我非常的兴奋，会议前夜几乎整晚不能入睡。需要着正装，我走进Pierre大酒店，穿的是我最好的西服和一条大红领带 …

我满怀欣喜的进入会场，几秒钟定定神后，目光在人群中搜寻，看看哪位会是我第一个上前去打招呼的人。然而，突然，这个想法吓着我了。他们为什么要跟我说话？他们是各大传媒公司的老总，我是一个25岁的做金融的小伙。他们不会跟我说的，他们会躲着避开跟我说话。我没有做过任何重要的事，没有任何对他们的公司有影响力的事。他们根本不在意我的西装和我的大红领带。

于是，接下来的30分钟，我只是尴尬的在屋里走来走去，听人们在交谈什么。当演讲开始时，我独自在后面找了个座位坐下。

Facebook创始人

在几个超过50岁的传媒公司老总的演讲后，观众开始期待下一场关于新型媒体的演讲会带来什么新鲜的论点。

台上出现的是两位20多岁的年轻人。我几乎不敢相信这样两位跟我年纪相仿的人竟会被邀请到这些要人面前发表演讲。然而，更让我震惊的是，所有人的目光都被他们吸引了；所有这些超过50岁的老总们都为他们着迷、兴奋，为他们取得的成就和他们所代表的意义而惊讶的张大了嘴巴；他们一位是Chad Hurley—因为当时把他的视频网站YouTube卖给谷歌而声名鹊起，另一位，穿着一双拖鞋，在《社交网络》这部电影公映前一直默默无闻的Mark Zuckerberg (注：Facebook网站的创始人)。

当演讲结束，传媒老总们全部上前去跟他们交谈，听取他们在商业上的想法。我只是站在后面看着他们。

我受打击了。

他们在实现某些东西。他们在改变整个世界的交流方式。而且，他们只用几年时间就完成了这些，他们没有募集很多的资金来实现他们的成就。是意志成就了他们的事业。

我在做什么？我能做出他们那样的成就吗？我能做出像他们做出的那样有重要意义的事情吗？

是的，就该这样。

我没有创办过科技公司。我甚至连网站就没有建过。对于产品管理、web开发和用户界面我又知道什么？

我有一个高薪的金融工作。我在做我该做的事。一切太晚了。我不知道去创办一个公司对我会意味着什么，而这最终的结果很可能是失败。

若按常人的观点，很显然，我应该坚持做我的金融。

我正走在我应该走的路上。

但是，日子一天天过去，我不断的回忆这次会议。一个恐怖的想法开始在我的脑海里形成：万一我能做成什么有成就的事呢？我要一直这样迷茫下去吗？我不会后悔吗？我就这样年复一年的消磨下去吗？

这时，我才意识到，我实际并不知道自己究竟怎样，因为我没有真正的失败过(至少在职业上是这样)。大多数都不曾真正的失败过。人们喜欢选择自己认为会成功的职业。然后慢慢悠悠的去实现它。当这样成功后，人们就不再去想其它的道路了。

能看清自己在某一方面究竟有多大本事的唯一办法就是去尝试、去奋斗。

也就是这时，我终于下定决心，要去测试一下自己的能力。是到了我真正去有所成就的时候了。我要辞去这稳定的工作，义无反顾的踏上前途未卜的创业之路。

我不知道如何才能成功的创办一个科技企业，但要去试一下。我决定步入这竞技场。不论成功或者被击败，我不在乎。我就是想知道我的能力极限在哪里。

于是，你知道发生了什么吗？

如今，距离离开Quadrangle集团已经4年了。我失败了吗？他奶奶的，当然了。我一次次的惨败。头两年，我根本不知道该做什么，像没头的苍蝇。但是，每一次的失败，我都学会了为什么 …

经过了前2年半的失败后，我们开发出来第三版的Yipit，它终于起飞成功了。我们已经进行了两次融资，包括最近的今年夏天的一次6百万美元融资。Yipit在迅速成长，我们对前方的道路充满的憧憬，我们组成了一个优秀的开发团队(加入我们！)。

但是，这最甜蜜的时刻却是我被邀请参加最近的一次Quadrangle研讨会。并不是作为会议发言人，我们还远远不够格。但是，在会议中有一个板块，三个创业公司每个人有3分钟的时间向电视连续剧和电视电影的发明者、全球最大的消费类电子商务公司的总裁—Barry Diller推销自己，Barry Diller然后会在所有传媒老总的面前用问题进行拷问。这种形式没人能不紧张，但过程很顺利。会议的末尾，Barry选出了他认为最有可能成功的创业公司，他选择的是Yipit。

当我步下讲台，身体仍然微微颤抖，传媒老总们都走上前来问我下一步计划如何做，有没有什么合作的机会。我几乎不敢相信他们会向我走来(我今天连那条大红领带都没戴)。