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I Quit my Job

I sit here… Β after starting, then deleting, starting then deleting and now (hopefully) finishing to write this major update in my EpicΒ journey. Β I decided to share this in public…..

I QUIT MY JOB

I didn’t quit epicplugins.com or epicthemes.com but I quit my “9-5”.

Why am I telling this to you? Well it’s so I can look back, have a record of the week that I finally did it, and share my journey along the way. If it helps you along the way then great.

Why did I leave a highly paying statistical risk analyst position? Well I wrote a post (over a year ago now) which went into the different ‘realms’ of work. While I enjoyed the position, I was constantly working with out of date tech (2007 and earlier versions of desktop applications) and there’s so much more value I can add by focusing my time on web development, as well as ticking the following major boxes for me:

  • I put in the effort, put in the hours and it directly benefits my own businessΒ and my own customers
  • It’s what I enjoy, it’s what I’m good at and I can work on what interests me
  • I can work from anywhere, anytime and for how long I would like (no sitting at a desk until the clock says go home)

It’s a risk though, I could have done this a long time ago but wouldn’t have built up savings and it would have been a lot more stressful. Β Whether the risk pays off financially, only time will tell. But I know I’m in the right place now personally (thanks NB).

So, what now?

You’ll have seen I have sent out some messages to my mailing list about what pains you have (sign up below so you don’t miss out on any reach outs) and also introduced the ‘transparency reports’ commitment (April 2016 now here). This has been to help me come up with my objective and strategy now I’m steering my own ship, but more on that below.

A special shout out here goes to @troydeanΒ for a very useful chat probably just about a year ago now, @ralphquinteroΒ (a plugin hunt theme customer) for some awesome advice and of course the ever sage contact with @woodyhayday. Β A special thank you to each of you for the following snippets of wisdom

  • What’s the worst that could happen
  • You’re in control of your own ship, steer it where you want it to go
  • It’s scary, its hard work, but man I’ve never looked back

So, what’s to come?

I’m a pretty big fan of Nathan Barry (@nathanbarry), and stumbled upon him from being recommend his blog as part of my anonymous question on QuoraΒ (see the reply from Tim Cull)* and really connected. But I still had the following doubts in my mind

  • All these guys kicking it are from the states, I’m from the UK, can I network the same?
  • Do I have what it takes to do what they do, they’re owners of some pretty wicked SaaS systems (I’m a ConvertKit customer)
  • It’s 2016 now, and there’s tons of new web apps, tons of new frameworks, is it getting too late to launch something new?

p.s if you want to see how the graphic in the Quora post developed since then, here it is (Feb 2015 was when the plugin hunt theme launch got some press from premiumwp)

Screen Shot 2016-05-02 at 18.31.37

*source internal system for sales tracking

By no means an exponential growth or a ‘hockey puck’, but still pretty good regular income, especially while spending most of my time at a full time role. So through a lot of reading and thinking of what my goals should be in this new direction of 100% of focus on epic… Β I came up with the following objective for Epic Plugins Limited.

Stabilise the product portfolio, including tidying up the feature lists, and work towards stabilising and diversifying the revenue while reducing reliance on the key man risk that is me

Wow, pretty nuts of an objective, so how do I intend to go about this?

Well, I’m deciding to doΒ TWO THINGSΒ splitting my time the following ways:

WordPress Plugins and WordPress Themes Development

I’ll obviously continue to do this line of development, whether it be enhancements to existing themes or development of new ones. I’ll also continue to do custom development of WordPress plugins, WordPress Themes, or custom features for any existing themes or plugins (get in touch if you need anything).

Web App Challenge

This is on the back of me following Nathan’s blog. In it he describes how he went from nothing, through idea stage to developing ConvertKit in 6 months with a limited time budget and a revenue target at the end of it. I want to give something like this a crack too. Β The main reason being it will help keep me on the cutting edge of tech and keep my inner “how does this new tech work and what could I do with it” demons at bay. I have some reservations to this though

  1. This has been done before, so I would be copying a cronicling of a web app challenge
  2. There’s a lot more apps on the market now than when Nathan set about his challenge (end 2012)
  3. I’d be moving (although only partly) away from WordPress Plugins and Themes
  4. Can I do this, will I fail, you don’t hear of too many UK people doing this (shout out if you are with where you’re from, maybe we can grab a coffee sometime?)

What do you think? Leave your comments below. Am I mad? have I made the right choice? Β I’m excited to share my journey along the way so if you want to follow along, you know what to do.


Comments

19 responses to “I Quit my Job”

  1. Brady Avatar
    Brady

    Way to go Mike! I am always happy to hear that someone has decided to believe in themselves and go all in on what they are truly passionate about! Success will follow!!!

    1. Thanks Brady

      Good things will come. πŸ™‚

  2. Congrats on the move Mike!

  3. I love your work with epic plugins, i earn lots of visitors using your tools and tips.
    God bless you!

    1. Thank you πŸ™‚ glad our products can help

  4. That’s great to hear. I love the Plugin Hunt theme. For a non-technical person like myself, it really makes it easy for me to configure Liquor Hunt and get it to 95% of the way there. Definitely looking forward to seeing the theme improve as well as new stuff you put out..

    1. Glad you like the theme πŸ™‚ keep killing it with liquorhunt it’s a cool way to use the theme

  5. Total belief in Mike and EpicPlugins / EpicThemes. This is going to be a big year here, so watch this space πŸ™‚

    1. Thanks Woody

      Through transparency reports and regular updates I hope my journey can inspire more to do the same

      Mike

  6. Congratulations Mike! And welcome to the entrepreneur party! I knew when we first chatted last year that you’d be where you are today… I’m glad you finally made it! πŸ™‚ I can’t wait to see all of the awesome products you develop now that your attention is focused 100% on your own venture. I’m especially excited about what you are going to develop on the web app side of things. I’m here for you brother!

    1. Thanks Raplh.

      Good to see you here. It’s scary but as you said. You’ve never looked back.

      Thanks for the kind words and support along the way.

  7. Congratulations Mike! FEAR NOTHING. You will be celebrating this day in 12 months!

    We love PlugIn Hunt and the upgrades you are doing. We are planning to make it central to our service soon.

    Best wishes from Dublin!

  8. Congrats Mike, I’m humbled and honoured that I was able to help in some way.

    Keep your foot on the pedal.

    1. Thanks Troy πŸ™‚ keep up your great work too at http://wpelevation.com/.

  9. Huge congrats. You are definitely on to something. Your level of engagement is a refreshing change for a market of folks looking to make a quick buck and leave their customers hanging. I am by no means an easy customer I would imagine and the support you have given me while I build http://poptalkhub.com has been amazing and really helped.

    I very much look forward to seeing what you do full time if this has just been part time.

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