Why A Career Change Made Me A Better Founder

I turned down a big job at Goldman Sachs — and ended up at a fitness company. 

Here’s why it made me a better founder.

When I got the Goldman offer, my career until that point had been purely finance. I was a Certified Financial Planner who had worked in retirement planning, was an early employee at financial planning startup LearnVest, and then I moved to Northwestern Mutual after an acquisition. 

I was following a pretty linear path. Going to Goldman was the obvious choice. But that’s not the path I took — instead, I went to SoulCycle, embarking on a journey that made me better as founder and CEO of Orum. Here’s why:

I learned that my definition of success was different. 

Everyone around me was incredulous: Go to Goldman, they said, and you can go anywhere from there! I heard it from my most successful friends, investors, former bosses, mentors. 

But after years of finance and lots of work travel, I had specific criteria in mind: I wanted to work for a female CEO, in a category I found interesting, at a company based in New York. Melanie Whelan and SoulCycle checked all those boxes. I had to learn to ignore external factors and listen to what I knew was right.

My playbook went out the window, along with any preconceived notions.

As we gain expertise, we develop our playbook about how to get things done. But when you entirely change careers, that playbook is not at all applicable. All you have is a blank piece of paper…something you don’t get very often. I was used to building services on the internet; SoulCycle was not only software but brick and mortar, media, talent, hardware, creative, and content. 

I had no choice but to get even more comfortable with figuring things out. I developed the confidence and wherewithal to unpack a problem — to break it into small pieces and figure out how to get it done.

I massively diversified my network.

During my time in finance, my network grew bigger — with the same kind of people. At SoulCycle I was suddenly among creatives, fitness experts, supply chain gurus, designers, and media folks who made me smarter.  I’m talking about you Laurel Pinson, Jenna Frank, Bevin Prince, Tessa Gould and Caroline Gogolak. I met several people who later joined me at Orum.

When you have a network full of lots of kinds of people,  you have more at your fingertips. The only way to do that is to throw yourself in the deep end — into a world that's unknown to you. Just like founding something new.

I got comfortable writing my own story.

If I’d taken the Goldman path, I'm sure I’d have some great story to tell. But it wouldn’t be this one. 

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