WTF, I work for someone else now?!
Today is my first day of working for someone else since 2009 - now I work for Medium!
My 14 years focused on running a small business have been truly remarkable. My company started as a semi-failed book promotional project that somehow grew into a small empire. (Trivia: my business name, Offbeat Empire LLC, started as a joke about my day job at Microsoft, aka the Evil Empire.)
It’s been such a treat to focus full-time on this publishing company, managing a team of almost 20 amazing editors, web developers, and sales folks over the years.
There was a point, however, when I realized that I’d hit my own glass ceiling.
As a committed bootstrapper who never took on venture capital or even business loans, my “big bets” could only be as large as my cash flow allowed… and at a certain point, I maxed out what I could do on my own.
I worked on lots of small interesting creative projects (art books, dance courses, membership programs), but I felt limited.
Then fall of 2022, Medium showed up with a job that felt made for me. I started in February 2023 as the Director of Publisher Growth, working closely with the product team at Medium, and then going out in the field talking to folks like me — independent…
