"From starting a SEO course to quitting within a year" with Austin Benoit (Episode 27)
Why I Quit
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Today, we are joined by Austin Benoit, who decided to go to University of Michigan for mechanical engineering because he believed it would be the safe long-term play. During college, he began taking entrepreneurship classes, where caught the bug of starting his own business. He still didn’t know what we wanted to do, so he started with a sales support role with a manufacturer.
During this first role, Austin was trying to find something that he could make an impact with. He started an Amazon drop shipping store for Bike Safety Kits for the sake of learning. He sourced his materials on Alibaba, set-up an Amazon Warehouse, and sold a few items. Eventually, he took a lateral move to a bigger company with higher pay and more vacation days. This didn’t seem to satisfy him and he started taking classes for his MBA. After four classes, he dropped out because he realized it was not for him.
About a year before quitting his full-time job, Austin discovered SEO courses and he went down a rabbit hole of learning. He was able to lock in a few freelancing clients on nights and weekends. The more he liked working with his SEO clients, the less he liked his full-time job. He officially quit his full-time job in March of 2021 to start Search Prestige, which specializes in helping other agencies add SEO to their offerings with his services. He has grown the team to four members and continues to scale his business each year. Now, Austin focuses on how to optimize his time and happiness when thinking about how he wants to continue to grow the business.
Check out the conversation as we dive into the following:
Why it is important to build up your startup on the side before quitting your full-time job
Why he decided not to finish his MBA
How to know if you are quitting for the right reasons
How COVID gave him to time to learn and improve his skills enough to start a business
How he time blocks his notifications to be more present when he is offline
Listen to Brian share his story and get inspired with his amazing advice to people thinking about following a similar path. Check out the full conversation on YouTube or Spotify by clicking the links below.
Know someone who should be on Why I Quit? We’re looking for all types of stories and people to feature at the top of the show. To nominate yourself or someone else, email dave@foundersapproach.com and tell us your name, where you’re from and what you want to talk about.