Hey all. I joined TFLF back in 2012 after reading The Fastlane. I wanted to build something but I lacked faith in myself, I mean, I was stuck in a $13 per hour job. So, instead of giving it a shot, I floundered around a bit. I tried my hand at self-publishing paranormal romance and didn’t do too bad at it… but I burned out. Writing love scenes became a chore instead of being exciting. (Who'd have thought?? lol)
So, what did I do? Start my own publishing business?
Pft. No. I climbed back into the corporate world. I taught myself marketing and landed a role as a marketing manager. Since then, I hit Head of and VP level, ran international teams, worked with good and bad budgets, launched products… you know, the typical corporate marketing stuff.
Why am I now trying to merge onto the Fastlane? Last year, I was a marketing director for a SaaS startup. I thought it was all going well. I was highlighted in a company wide meeting as rising star within the company in February 2024 and fast tracked to CMO in 3 years. But… things quickly soured as I noticed the toxicity in the company, specifically surrounding my boss and a few others. It was causing my team to silo themselves and the ideas stopped flowing. There was backstabbing on a level that I had never seen. We even had tearing down of employees on interdepartmental zoom meetings.
Worse yet, it started affecting my health… you know, high blood pressure, constant heartburn… yeah. In June of 2024, I finally had enough and had a chat with HR about the toxicity and how my entire team was scared.
I was laid off in October 2024 along with 26 other people. It was the third round of layoffs they'd done in the year I'd been with the company.
Interestingly enough, even though we needed my income, I felt this huge weight lift off of me. That job just flat out sucked.
I took it as my chance to finally do something. I produced some great results for the last company and others before it, not just in marketing, but building systems that allowed companies to grow and scale on a shoestring.
But fear caused me to apply for jobs instead. I’m sure many of you know how the job market is these days… but I've had over 12 2nd+ interviews since then with no offers.
So, at the end of last month, I gathered my courage in a pile and started a productized rev engine business. Got some early traction on Reddit, especially with two posts, one with 47k views, 78 upvotes, and 57 comments. The other had 3.6k views, 15 upvotes, and 36 comments. This resulted in my first ‘product’ sale. I’m still in the early stage though… staying scrappy.
I’m going to use this thread as a journey to show what I’m trying, what’s working, and what’s not. If it helps someone else avoid wasting 15 years before trying to merge on the Fastlane, even better.
So, what did I do? Start my own publishing business?
Pft. No. I climbed back into the corporate world. I taught myself marketing and landed a role as a marketing manager. Since then, I hit Head of and VP level, ran international teams, worked with good and bad budgets, launched products… you know, the typical corporate marketing stuff.
Why am I now trying to merge onto the Fastlane? Last year, I was a marketing director for a SaaS startup. I thought it was all going well. I was highlighted in a company wide meeting as rising star within the company in February 2024 and fast tracked to CMO in 3 years. But… things quickly soured as I noticed the toxicity in the company, specifically surrounding my boss and a few others. It was causing my team to silo themselves and the ideas stopped flowing. There was backstabbing on a level that I had never seen. We even had tearing down of employees on interdepartmental zoom meetings.
Worse yet, it started affecting my health… you know, high blood pressure, constant heartburn… yeah. In June of 2024, I finally had enough and had a chat with HR about the toxicity and how my entire team was scared.
I was laid off in October 2024 along with 26 other people. It was the third round of layoffs they'd done in the year I'd been with the company.
Interestingly enough, even though we needed my income, I felt this huge weight lift off of me. That job just flat out sucked.
I took it as my chance to finally do something. I produced some great results for the last company and others before it, not just in marketing, but building systems that allowed companies to grow and scale on a shoestring.
But fear caused me to apply for jobs instead. I’m sure many of you know how the job market is these days… but I've had over 12 2nd+ interviews since then with no offers.
So, at the end of last month, I gathered my courage in a pile and started a productized rev engine business. Got some early traction on Reddit, especially with two posts, one with 47k views, 78 upvotes, and 57 comments. The other had 3.6k views, 15 upvotes, and 36 comments. This resulted in my first ‘product’ sale. I’m still in the early stage though… staying scrappy.
I’m going to use this thread as a journey to show what I’m trying, what’s working, and what’s not. If it helps someone else avoid wasting 15 years before trying to merge on the Fastlane, even better.
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