In our parents’ generation, it was common for people to stay in the same line of work — even at the same company — for decades at a time. But that climate has changed significantly, with millennials making it a point to align their work with their values and interests. Often times, that includes a pivot or two at some point in our careers.
The following women are no strangers to big career changes (one left her job as a mechanical engineer to launch her own sextech startup!) and each had different strategies for making the move. Listen to their stories and consider taking some risks of your own.
Lindsey Salas and Megan Shekleton launched MoxxieMade, a women’s community that hosts events throughout New York City, while working their full-time jobs. Fortunately, their experience in marketing and account management helped arm them with the tools they needed to create the women’s professional and social community that MoxxieMade is known for. They told us about their experience balancing a 9-5 with a 5-9.
“When we founded MoxxieMade, we were searching for a new way to feed our souls. While we are both so blessed to already find a great level of fulfillment, mentorship, growth and satisfaction in our full-time jobs, we’re also dedicated to creating and leaving behind a greater impact on the world. After many discussions, we both realized that at our core, we really want to positively impact other women's lives.
Pivoting between our 9-to-5 jobs and MoxxieMade (we call it our 5-9!) is a challenge, but the deep gratification and purpose it has given back to us makes it worth undertaking. We are lucky that it never feels like a chore because it’s our dream living out loud.”
Nina Faulhaber co-founded fashion tech startup ADAY after working in venture capital. With a background in finance and entrepreneurship and a passion for creativity, she was able to work with her co-founder Meg He to make the career move that would change everything.
“My first job after college was at Goldman Sachs working in mergers and acquisitions. It made sense, as I had studied finance and entrepreneurship and was always good at math. Still, it didn’t take long for me to realize my heart yearned for creativity. Subsequently, I went to work for a London-based venture capital fund focused on technology and consumer internet.
During that time, my co-founder Meg and I started exploring the idea of ADAY, a direct-to-consumer brand creating consciously designed, technical clothing essentials. mostly because we actually needed it in our lives. Growing up, I was a competitive gymnast in Germany and wore a lot of active clothing, so my wardrobe had always been simple. As an adult, it didn’t feel simple anymore at all — I had a lot of stuff in my wardrobe but nothing I wanted to wear. I’m a minimalist at heart so that didn’t feel right. From there, ADAY was born, and as different as it is from my original career plan, it blends all of my experience and passions perfectly.”
In what might be the career change of the century, Janet Lieberman changed her title from mechanical engineer to CTO and co-founder of Dame Products, a sex tech startup that she launched in 2014 with co-founder Alexandra Fine. She walked us through her exciting transformation.
“I had been working as a mechanical engineer for seven years when I decided to start my own company making sex toys. I'd worked at a lot of startups as a female engineer, and I had a lot of trouble finding a steady, supportive work environment. Still, I got to see how a lot of different companies operated. Having a lot of different jobs forces you to learn how to learn and to become comfortable taking on new responsibilities. Plus, working on small teams gives you a lot more interaction with different departments, which ultimately makes it easier to learn how other parts of a company work. After a few years of bouncing around, I hit a point where I realized that if I wanted stability in my career, I would have to build it myself. I also realized that I'd learned a fair amount about how companies operated and were built over the years, and that I’d even played an active role those processes. Those key experiences made starting my own company a little less scary.”
Workplace flexibility startup Werk was launched in 2016. At the time, Lindsay Dreyer was working as a reporter where she was tasked with interviewing celebrities and writing features. She told us why she made the move from the red carpet to a startup.
“After graduating, I was fortunate to create digital editorial content for publications that were obsessed with analytics, and as a result I quickly learned how to make strategic editorial decisions based on hard data. Over time, my passion expanded into content marketing, and so, after standing on red carpets and attending celebrity press junkets for almost a decade, I finally left publishing behind for Werk, a tech startup that puts workplace flexibility data and insights into the hands of companies to help them work smarter.
I knew that I could use what I learned about narrative building and user behavior to tell a compelling story about the shortcomings of the modern workplace, and play a key role in leveraging technology to prevent it from failing millions of people every day. Currently, I have my hands in a bit of everything — from managing our social media and email marketing efforts to running our content vertical and so much more. Most skills are more versatile than you think. As a creative, it's easy to pigeonhole yourself into certain types of roles or suffer from imposter syndrome — but creativity can actually be one of your greatest assets, especially when using data to strategize and problem solve.”
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