You Left Goldman Sachs to Do What? One Year Later

One year ago I quit my job at Goldman Sachs and came to work for Teem. Boy was that a change! I wrote an article when I left chronicling my departure (you can read it HERE). This is what I had to say after a few months:

“I left my fancy office, my free gym membership and other corporate perks, and my stock options that hadn’t fully vested yet. I took a large pay cut as well. And if we’re being honest, not everyone I knew supported the move. But I did it. And do I have any regrets? None.”

This last year has been the best of my working life. But to really understand why we need to go back in time.

In that original post, I talked about how I discovered Teem (then EventBoard), loved what they did, and wanted to be part of it. What I didn’t say was how much time it took to even get them to notice me. My journey started on LinkedIn in February when I reached out to a 2nd-degree connection.

A little lengthy for an intro, but it worked! I gave him a call Monday and he filled me in on what he thought of Teem. Later that day I sent him my resume to forward on so it wouldn’t just sit in the fat stack of applications. We even scheduled a business lunch to talk more.

As great as Dustin is, I didn’t want to leave all my eggs in that basket. I emailed Teem’s HR rep, the CSM team manager, and reached out to one more employee for good measure.

February finished up with a healthy dose of radio silence. That’s when I decided to take matters into my own hands. I finished work just before 5:00 one day and booked it over to Teem’s office hoping to find someone there. Using their visitor management software I notified Jared (the CSM manager) that I was there to see him. He pulled me into an interview right then and there.

Then there was silence again… not a good sign.

So I reached back out.

On the last day of March I got the email I was hoping for.

“I apologize for the delay in getting back to you. We’d really like to bring you in to meet with our VP of Sales, Kyle. Are you available on Friday?”

Yes! Now we were getting somewhere. I came out of that interview feeling pretty good. A week went by, and then I got the email I’d been dreading.

This is probably where they hoped I’d just go away. But I didn’t. A week went by and I couldn’t get it out of my head. Every time I walked into a conference room for a meeting that inevitably ended up starting late or had to be moved to another room I was reminded about Teem.

So I threw one last hail mary.

At the end of April they called me in for one last interview, and I got the job! It wasn’t the position I originally applied for, but it was where I wanted to be, and that’s all the start I needed.

Fast forward one year and I’m now working in Partner Development, enabling our channel partners to sell Teem’s solutions. We’ve had another baby, and just moved into a new house last week.

The interview process was long (we’ve buttoned that up now), but once I joined the team I was welcomed with open arms. The work/life balance is amazing, we’re growing like crazy, and I spend the day with some pretty fantastic people. I didn’t regret the move after 3 months, and I definitely don’t regret it after a year.

If there’s something you’re passionate about, don’t give up on it. Make one more call. Send one more email. Connect with one more person. Whatever you do, don’t quit when you meet a little opposition. You never know what could happen until you try.