WERE YOU DOING EDITORIAL CONTENT MARKETING AT LINKEDIN?
Jon: I was on the rotational program for the first year and a half. I went through recruiting, customer operations and then sales. In the recruiting rotation, I was recruiting software engineers. Then I got to customer operations which is the help side of LinkedIn where people have a problem. During that process I realized I didn’t want to go into sales. I didn’t think I wanted to be in California; I was unhappy. Asking myself, “How do I figure out what to do next?”
LinkedIn was a good place to work because I had no idea what I wanted to do next. The world was my oyster. I had a premium account and all these other features that people don’t know about. I looked for jobs internally between zero and two years of experience because that’s all I had. I found one, applied, and didn’t tell my manager, which, is not what you should do to be clear. Don’t do what I did.
DID BLAVITY STEAL YOU AWAY FROM LINKEDIN?
Jon: I wouldn’t say steal. When I was about to transition, Morgan sat me down and told me about the idea for Blavity. She’s like, “hey I got this thing, I think, I’m going to work on it. I want you to be involved.” I was like, “say less.” She told me I didn’t have to quit my job and I was like, “oh okay, it’s lit!” At that point I was doing a lot of editorial, a lot of writing, and then Blavity was growing at the same time. I was growing in my career. I had a full-time gig and Blavity was onto something big.
Johnny: Is this how most entrepreneurial ventures start?
Jon: I think that’s a helpful way to do it. Sometimes people jump out the window and blow it all up. I don’t like people who tell other people to take risks that they’ve never encountered. I think that’s super irresponsible. I feel that if you have to knit your own safety net, you have different things to think about. I’m not in the business of telling people to quit their day jobs to be super entrepreneurs. Do what works for you and make a plan that allows you the personal runway to make educated decisions about what success looks like to you.
