Before we were Skimm A and Skimm B we were TV news associate producers. And we loved it. But we didn’t think it was something we could do forever for a few reasons….
1) We graduated in 2008 and the job market was bleak. Even though we got jobs and worked our way up, the market wasn’t looking any better a few years later. Meaning when it came to a path towards promotion — we were getting ‘ask again later’.
2) Media does not mean you make cash money. Which is OK at 25, but not so OK down the road.
3) None of our friends watched what we produced. And that was annoying.
So after re-reading “The Secret”, thinking about taking the LSAT, and interviewing at PR firms all left us feeling not quite right…we had the idea to do something different. But quitting the jobs we had worked so hard to get was not an easy thing to do. Here’s really how it went:
- There was no ‘a ha’ moment where we decided to quit. It would make for a better story but we’re not that decisive. What is now known as ‘theSkimm’ was formerly known as ‘Project’ in our minds for a longgg time before we actually went for it. Instead of just leaping, there were months and months of having conversations with people who had previously started something and our parents. At first, our parents thought we were insane or depressed. They didn’t understand why we would leave the jobs they had seen us work so hard to get. There were a lot of phone calls.
- …though we did quit when we thought the stars aligned. Eventually, our parents got tired of hearing us talk about some idea we had. We also were at career inflections. Skimm A’s promotion got delayed, Skimm B was put on a new show she didn’t love. And we met someone who told us that you can’t fail if you don’t try. Obvious advice but it was the push we needed to actually start.
- As for actually quitting, it still gives us anxiety. Quitting these at one time dream jobs for us was terrifying and completely out of character. It involved blacking out for the period of time we actually quit and having a boss question whether we were actually quitting because they couldn’t understand through the tears. We didn’t quit because we were unhappy, we quit because we wanted to do something different. And that made actually leaving harder.
- We had no clue what we were getting into. We had saved up as much as we could — which was a couple thousand dollars between the two of us. So we had that, and our busted computers, and our second hand couch, and our phones. That was it. Thankfully, we didn’t know how hard it would be — or else we probably would have thought much more. Now when we hire, we look for people who can move mountains with just their phone, computer, and snacks.
- Our prep involved stocking up on office supplies and filling up our fridge. No joke. We thought that we would take a lot of notes in our new notebooks. And we thought that we should cut back on our spending (since we wouldn’t be making a salary for a while) — so we bought a lot of groceries.
- Then we got busy. And never actually used the office supplies, mini board, or groceries (hello take out). We were so busy with everything that went into getting the business off the ground that we had no time to pause and say — wow, we just quit our old lives.
theSkimm: Quitting was the scariest day of our lives. But we had to do it — or else we would have always wondered what would have been. Also, theSkimm girl is too good looking just to live in someone’s imagination.
Originally published at blog.theskimm.com.
