Another Round of Layoffs

Job security is such an illusion, isn't it? You could work for a huge stable company that suddenly decides to move your job overseas. You could work for a smaller company that's doing really well, and gets acquired! Yay! Well... until they decide to take the company a different direction and your job is no longer relevant. Or maybe you work for a volatile startup and your salary can no longer be afforded. 

Layoffs, layoffs, layoffs.

We've seen all of those exact situations happen to people close to us in the last year. Some of us are okay to keep rolling the dice and putting our fate into another's hands. Some of us don't think we have a choice. Honestly, if I were the breadwinner of our family, I would be plugging along with my head down, just hoping that the layoffs didn't happen to me. 

That's not Ben. If we're billionaires vacationing on our own private island, he wants it to be because of his own hard work. If we're out of jobs, out of money, and eating Top Ramen, he wants it to be on his terms, not some bureaucrat trying to "clean up the budget." He wants to be the master of his own fate. He wants it so badly that he's willing to live on 4 hours of sleep. He's willing to fail and keep trying until he gets it right. He's willing to be hated, ignored, and not taken seriously. He's willing to have hard conversations with people he'd rather not talk to. He's not just willing to do these things. He's excited to do them. 

"Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won’t so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can’t.” 
— Anonymous

Enough said. 

And I'm the lucky one that gets to live it with him. (You're wondering if that statement is dripping with sarcasm, right? Me too). 

Last time I left off with a long car ride, and a big idea. In case you already forgot, or didn't read that post, our business is AR video cards. 

Where did we go from there? 

It turned into a side-project. You know what I'm talking about. You love it, you're excited about it, you're going to Make. It. Happen. And then you realize that you work full-time, commute 2-3 hours a day, and have an angry wife that is going to scratch your eyes out if she has to put the kids to bed by herself one more time. Ha. That's how it goes for everybody, right?

So, it slowly faded out of existence in our lives. Ben tried other little side projects and watched many of his co-workers get laid off. He was getting frustrated and restless. 

That's when a new sort of conversation started. He usually began his sentences with "So I had another idea!" Now they all started with, "So I did the math..." that was followed by, "If we save $1,000 a month, I could quit my job in 6 months, and we'd have 6-8 months of runway." Sometimes it would be, "If I dropped to part-time, we could still afford our house," or "If we sold (fill in the blank) we could have (fill in the blank) months of runway."

You're probably thinking, "Hey Karen, why don't you go get a job?" That's fair. I completed an AS degree at a community college. I was a pitifully paid preschool teacher for 5 years after that. I have no skills people. I mean, unless you want a peanut butter sandwich and a cup of milk stat. I also know some pretty great songs about the alphabet, but last time I checked, that won't pay the bills. (On a more serious note, I do write, but that also doesn't pay the bills). 

We talked about home equity loans. We refinanced our house to lower our payment. We tried to tighten our budget. Ben avoided saying it, but we had nearly $80,000 worth of equity sitting in our beautiful new house. He also tried to hide the fact that his desk job was sucking the life out of him, literally. 

I love my husband. I believe so much in his abilities. He has some damn good ideas, and he deserves to pursue his dreams. If anyone deserves it, he does. 

And so, we decided together that if we were going to do this, we needed to go all in. You know the scene in "The Dark Knight Rises" where Batman is stuck at the bottom of the cave-pit thing? And there's a rope, and you can tie it to yourself while you try to climb out so you don't fall? But Batman couldn't get out until he tried it without the rope.

Basically what I'm trying to say is, my husband is Batman.

Also, I'm trying to say that you can't reach for the stars with a rope tied to your waist. The rope was the job, the house, the white picket fence lie. 

So we made a thousand pros and cons lists, and we went all in. 

The Big Idea

My husband, Ben, literally cannot stop the flow of ideas that pour into his head. One thing I can count on him saying at least every other day is, "So I had another idea! What do you think of this?" Some of them elicit nothing more than a blank stare from me. Then there are others that get me all excited and convince me to sell our house.

This idea, the big one, started forming almost a year ago. We were halfway through a ten-hour long drive home from Disneyland. (Ben is obsessed with Disneyland, but that's a topic for another day). He was bouncing his usual stream of ideas off of me, while the kids cried for more snacks in the backseat.

Suddenly his eyes lit up and he went quiet for a minute. I could almost see the wheels turning in his head. "AR video cards!"

"Hmm?"

Guys, do you even know what AR is? Do you know what VR is? I'm the only one of my friends that follows HTC Vive on Facebook. I'm the only one that's climbed Mt. Everest and sat on the bottom of the ocean floor, watching jellyfish float past. I'm the only one that can give you a "pros and cons list" comparing Occulus and Vive. Should we talk about field of view and tracking accuracy? No?

Okay, for those who aren't familiar with these technologies, Augmented Reality superimposes computer-generated images into your real-world view of something. (Think Snapchat filters or Pokemon Go, only so much cooler).  Virtual Reality is completely computer-generated and immersive.

These technologies are amazing and they're exploding. If you haven't already, you're going to start seeing them everywhere. And no, they are not just for hardcore gamers. I cannot emphasize that enough. They have the potential to bring some really incredible and positive changes to so many aspects of society.

Ben has been a software engineer in the VR industry for a couple of years now. He is passionate about the good ways it can change the world, and I guess I am too now.

Anyway, back to the idea. AR video cards.

We're talking physical paper cards that you send in the mail, hold your phone over them, and watch them come to life. Users will be able to upload video and customize awesome 3D content. These cards can be used for regular greeting card purposes, announcements, invitations, or just to share a big moment with someone you love.

Ben and I have both gotten a lot of "whys?" and "hows?" when we've attempted to share this idea with others. We have the answers to most of those questions, and I will gladly get into them in another post.

Right now though, I'm a little concerned that Thing 1 and Thing 2 have been napping too long and will, therefore, refuse to go to sleep tonight! We can't have that. We just can't.

Until next time! ✌

Intros: The Wife, The Dreamer, The Kids

I'm Karen. I'm a little too emotional, a little too sarcastic, and a little too quiet. I get stressed out and overwhelmed probably too easily. But damn-it, I'm one of the most loyal and supportive people you will ever meet, and if I give you my love you will have it forever.

I married a trail-blazing, adventure-seeking dreamer when we were just babies. Seriously, we were twenty and twenty-three. Babies. Let's call him Ben (because that's his name). Sometimes this guy has me in awe with all of his brilliance and bravery. I would literally kiss the hem of his hypothetical robes and follow him to the ends of the earth. Other times the constant stream of ideas and his inability to be content are... annoying. Still other times, he's an asshole and I want to punch him in the face.

Marriage, right?

We have two little boys, a four-year-old and a two-year-old. Let's call them Thing 1 and Thing 2 (because they are wild and crazy and because pedophiles don't get to know their names). I stay home and clean up their messes. No, I cook their food and open their fruit-snack wrappers. Um, maybe I keep them from accidentally killing each other? I drive them places. I'm the chauffeur. Okay but really I just wipe their bums and wash their clothes all day. I'm the one that yells, "STOP TOUCHING YOUR BROTHER!!!" 500,000,000 times a minute.

I am blessed with the ever-rewarding task of raising up two precious tiny humans into kind, thoughtful, functioning adults. Is that a better description of what I do?

Two months ago, my husband —with my full consent— cannon-balled us right into the middle of a crazy adventure.

He quit his 6 figure salary job. We sold our beautiful brand new house on a half-acre lot and moved into a rental.

Why? Why would we do that?

He/we/mostly he is starting a company. I am here to tell that story, from my perspective. Let me just preface it all by saying, entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart. It's not for the doubtful, the insecure, or the comfortable. It will test you and break you, and then test you again. It's hard and it's ugly, and it's a long, long road. But at the end of this dark, hard, scary road is a beacon of hope and excitement that forces you to keep going. Maybe, just maybe we'll make it and real dreams will start coming to life. That sounds like it's worth it to me.

I will try to post weekly updates to this blog and document this insane journey. It will be irreverent (we curse), sarcastic, honest, and hopefully inspiring.

Up next: The Big Idea