Thread by @_rchase_

2 years ago I was fired from my job.

I'll never forget how it felt.

26 years old. I had just bought my first house with my girlfriend. 5 acres, 3 cars, a boat, a cat, a dog. My side businesses were getting traction.

It was a great life.

Then my manager threw a grenade in it.

https://twitter.com/_rchase_/status/1082421530934554624

HostiFi was making $2k/month revenue, only about half was profit.

It wasn't enough to pay the bills, and I had spent my life savings 6 months earlier on the the house down payment.

I only had enough savings left to make the mortgage payment for 3 more months.

I guess the natural thing to do would have been to start applying for jobs right away, and pick up some contract work.

But I knew HostiFi was at an inflection point. If I became distracted with a new job or side work, it would wreck my shot.

I had made my mind up, I never applied to a single job.

Seems dramatic now, but I sat on the bricks in front of my house and cried.

I knew I was about to lose everything.

Most of all, I was worried if my relationship was going to survive this.

I listed the house for sale, ate ramen, burned pellets to stay warm and slept by the fireplace.

Housing market is slow in the winter, didn't get any offers until April.

I was down to my last dollar when @earnestcapital wired me $XXX,000 and the house sold that same month.

All of a sudden I had more money in the bank than I'd ever seen in my life.

The highs and lows were insane.

I had too much pride at the time to admit that we moved into a bedroom in my girlfriend's parents house 😂

https://twitter.com/_rchase_/status/1123318564738543616?s=20

The rest is history I guess.

Things got easier from there.

I proposed to my girlfriend Emily of 5 years the month after I got fired. Our relationship became stronger.

We lived with her parents from January 2019 to May 2020.

I worked in a garage which her dad built for me.

We couldn't get a loan for a new mortgage in early 2020 because my income was being calculated based on business tax returns from 2017 and 2018.

So we ended up buying a bank foreclosure on auction.com for $60K cash and fixing it up.

2019 was my breakout year

2018: @hostifi_net $0 -> $28K ARR
2019: @hostifi_net $28K -> $186K ARR
2020: @hostifi_net $186K -> $582K ARR

It worked out, and I'd do it again, but it also could have been very different.

What if I didn't get accepted into @earnestcapital?
What if the most important person in my life wasn't down for the ride?
What if the house didn't sell?
What if the business failed?

I felt like I had to take these risks because I couldn't imagine having to work for another manager like the one who fired me.

As I sat and cried in front of the house I lost, I said I'll never let someone do this to me again.