Goodbye eBay, Hello Startup

After over 3½ years at eBay, the time had come for me to move on. It was an extremely tough decision to make - especially given the fact that I have a mortgage to pay, but in the end - I knew it was the right decision.

Despite the ups and downs, my time at eBay was an incredibly rewarding one. My time at eBay started off as a one-month contract. At the time, I had plans to move -- but I was contacted by a recruiter about the position, and told myself, "Hey, a one month contract can't hurt!" Working somewhere new, even if just temporarily, is a great way to learn. It's why I loved doing multiple internships while I was in college.

Little did I know, it wasn't going to be a short pit stop. One month became two, then six.. and somehow ended up being three years and nine months! Besides my awesome teammates, I think what really pulled me in was the fact that I was given so many opportunities to learn, challenge myself, take on new responsibilities, and continuously evolve my role.

Some of the highlights of my time at eBay include:

- Leading creative production for the Canadian French site launch -- working from the Toronto office for 5 months to train a designer and work collaboratively with a team of French linguists while being the UED liason between Canada and US eBay offices.

- All the awesome conferences (AdobeMAX, Web 2.0, Mix09, etc) I was able to attend to keep up-to-date with the latest and greatest with web technologies and innovations. I was always able to come back from one of those, feeling even more inspired.

- Putting together a training program for Experience Engineering team, and traveling to Chennai, India to train a team of 20 developers

- Traveling to Shanghai to give presentations at eBay's China Development Center, and meet with potential vendors.

- Taking part at Skunkworks (eBay's employee innovation competition) multiple times, and actually winning. Who doesn't like to be a winner?!

- Being a part of the awesome concept club / vision typing / innovative team and working with the most ambitious, creative, smart and talented designers and developers.

- Working with people I can truly consider friends...

These experiences, and the relationships I've built over the years - are things that definitely made it difficult for me to leave eBay. However, over time, I just felt I wasn't challenging myself as much as I could be. I weighed my options and decided that taking a leap into the startup world would be my best next jump. =) I had already started working on this as a side project with a couple of engineer friends... but decided I really wanted to focus on it full time. WIth doing this startup, I'm able to wear SO many hats, which really allows me to experience the type of growth I need right now. I'll be managing the requirements and content, designing the site, doing the PR/marketing and handling the business aspect of things. How exciting is that?! =)

I definitely know it's a big risk, but timing-wise it is the best time for me to take a risk -- before JT and I decide to have kids. Whether or not it works out with an ideal outcome, I'll still walk away with the experience and the piece of mind that I really gave it a shot.

As for making money - just to make things clear for all of those people who say "ooh it must be nice that you're married and you can do this..." eck No, I would not be so selfish to quit my job and expect him to cover my part. No way. To bum off my hubby is just against everything I stand for. I put myself through college on my own by working a lot of side jobs and gigs - and I plan to do the same to put myself through entrepreneurship =) It keeps things interesting to take part in a lot of different fun, creative projects anyway! It's like getting paid for doing stuff you'd do for fun. Married or not, I'd make the same decision to go for it! After we get things off the ground, I can re-evaluate my situation later this year and decide whether or not I should go job hunting.

So although I won't be discussing the details of my startup until we actually launch the site, I will be blogging about my progress and adventures along the way.