Harvard Business Review: Why Utkarsh Left Microsoft to Build Network Capital

This is the text of the article published by Harvard Business Review.

When are people most likely to quit their job?

Turns out, it’s about a year after they start. Some people might attribute this to the myth that we have to spend at least one year in a role before moving on to something better (at least if we want to look like responsible human beings to future employers). But if you dive a bit deeper into the data, you will find a more fascinating pattern.

Job hunting actually spikes on work anniversaries, along with milestone birthdays, major life events, and oddly, high school and college reunions. Researchers believe this happens because what we consider “the end of an era” or “a momentous life event” inspires us to reevaluate our present situation and consider a fresh start.

I admit, I’m interested in this research for more than academic reasons. I quit my job at Microsoft on my sixth anniversary, and it just so happens that I did it right in the middle of a global pandemic.

Summer 2020 flipped my life upside down. I was supposed to head to the University of Oxford as a Chevening Fellow and marry my girlfriend, a data scientist based in London, at a quaint location with our friends from around the world. I was to return to India after the fellowship, continue working on my passion project (Network Capital, a peer-to-peer mentoring community) on weekends, while I supported my life with the day job at Microsoft.

But as you can guess, that’s not how things unfolded.

On June 7, the day of my wedding that wasn’t happening, I was sitting in my study in New Delhi, reminiscing on what could have been and thinking about what would come next. I loved what I did at Microsoft and derived great meaning from building Network Capital, but I also needed to figure out a way to be close to my girlfriend who was an ocean away. There were global lockdowns and travel restrictions. The international borders were sealed. People transitioned to working from home overnight. I knew that many things, including my relationship, would never be the same again, at least if I didn’t make some kind of change.

I once heard that emergencies fast-forward history — personal, political, and societal. As historian Yuval Noah Harari explains, decisions that in normal times could take years of deliberation are passed in a matter of hours during a crisis.

This was the sentiment I felt, sitting in my study, thinking about what I needed to do to piece my relationship back together. Here were my options:

After much deliberation, I chose to take on my passion project full-time. It wasn’t an easy decision, but I want to share with you how I came to it. Though every situation is unique, I know that anyone with a side hustle they love, or anyone thinking about starting one, may be forced to deliberate similar questions at some point (especially given the state of the job market right now).

If you’re stuck in a job, should you stay simply because you’re lucky to have one or take a risk on your passion project? If you’re just entering the workforce, should you spend time competing for a role or focus on building a business of your own?

There are many factors you need to weigh before making these decisions. Here’s what I asked myself before making mine:

1) Is my passion project solving a problem?

If you have a business idea in mind but you aren’t sure that it’s addressing a real problem, you might end up spending your time and energy building the wrong thing. Great businesses are built on deep insights. Consider if you truly understand the unmet needs of the customers or community you are serving and if you have enough data to validate your idea.

Ask yourself:

Does the customer really see this as a problem?

Will it make their life better?

Would they be willing to pay for it?

I had identified a clear gap in the education and learning space for Millennials, but before going all out on my side hustle, I needed to test my hypothesis. There are many ways to do this, including focus group discussions, one-on-one interviews with your customers, or market research (to name a few). For Network Capital, I launched a “I don’t know what I want to do with my life” fellowship for Millennials, which enabled me to learn more about the pressures and anxieties young people face and ultimately build a better product.

As you collect evidence and data with your own experiments, connect them back to your original idea to see if you’re going in the right direction or if you need to go back to the drawing board.

2) Does my product actually work?

Even after you validate your hypothesis, you need to test your minimum viable product (MVP). Simply put, an MVP is a functional prototype with just enough features to convey your idea in its simplest form. The goal is to build something that your customer can actually use so that they can give you critical feedback on what’s working and what’s not.

Network Capital’s MVP was a Facebook group. We allowed users to ask for customized subscription plans for the few services we had to offer. Having that MVP was precious to the development of our full suite of services when the website did finally launch.

In essence, you want to use this stage of product development to a) build a community interested in what you have to offer and b) figure out a business model that serves their needs based on their feedback. Doing this will empower you in two ways: First, it will help eliminate the gap between your product development and revenue generation. Through your MVP, you may have opportunities to make a decent revenue before officially launching. Second, you can use any revenue you do make to help you build the next version of your product or service.

3) Have I reached at least 1,000 customers? Can I?

As Kevin Kelley, co-founder of Wired, advises in his essay 1,000 True Fans, “1,000 true fans is an alternative path to success other than stardom. Instead of trying to reach the narrow and unlikely peaks of platinum bestseller hits, blockbusters, and celebrity status, you can aim for direct connection with a thousand true fans. On your way, no matter how many fans you actually succeed in gaining, you’ll be surrounded not by faddish infatuation, but by genuine and true appreciation. It’s a much saner destiny to hope for. And you are much more likely to actually arrive there.”

In other words, your goal doesn’t necessarily need to be to build the next Google or Facebook. And even if that is your goal, you still need to figure out how to get those first 1,000 people to pay for what you are building if you want to succeed. It may sound easy but getting people to pay for a product requires substantial grit, especially if you don’t have investors on board.

You should start your journey to 1,000 customers by obsessively focusing on the community experience. If people feel connected with how you are delivering on your said mission, they are more likely to place their faith in you. Network Capital got its first 1,000 subscribers much sooner than I thought and I can only attribute that to the community we had built and nurtured on Facebook before launching. A large chunk of that community-building entailed doing things that didn’t have the potential to scale, such as the founders reaching out to potential subscribers to make a personal connection.

In the early days of Airbnb, the cofounders did something similar. They personally responded to customer care queries, showed them around the city, photographed house listings, and even put together a customized breakfast for guests comprised of cereals themed on the presidential candidates at the time, Barack Obama and John McCain (Obama Os and Capitan McCains). In other words, they made a genuine attempt to develop a personal connection. They didn’t need to do all this, but their efforts to build a true community of travelers helped scale trust. Precisely because of that Airbnb got off the ground, acquired the momentum, built the right systems and processes, and became the multi-billion-dollar behemoth we know today.

4) Do I really have the skills and resources required to manage a business right now?

Organizational psychologist and author Adam Grant once wrote, “Quitting your full-time job to start a company is like proposing marriage on the first date. … The most durable businesses are typically started by people who play it safe.” As a 25-year-old with a $150,000 education loan, I couldn’t have just quit my job on a whim. I wanted the work experience, the skills, the network, and the financial stability before venturing out on my own. Risk-taking is often glamorized by touting isolated examples of moonshot successes, but the best entrepreneurs are those who are able to figure out the optimum risk-reward ratio that works for them.

When Phil Knight started Nike, he spent five years as a certified public accountant putting in six days a week at PWC. Shark Tank’s Daymond John eased into the entrepreneurial life by constantly tinkering after his day job as a waiter at Red Lobster. Herb Keller, the co-founder of Southwest Airlines, kept practicing as an attorney for almost five years as he got the business off to a start.

Getting some work experience can help arm you with the basic management skills you need to get a business off the ground, but as an entrepreneur, you need to understand what you’re inherently good at and like to do and what you need help with. You don’t need to possess all the skills required to run a business, but you need to be able to find people with skills that complement your own to help you realize your dream.

In the same way, I draw a lot of strength from the fact that there is a wide spectrum of peer mentors, city leaders, and team members who are aligned in helping my company reach its full potential.

So those are the questions I asked myself before deciding to leave a stable job pursue my passion project. Were my personal reasons a contributing factor? Absolutely. Did the coronavirus pandemic fast-forward my decision-making? 100%. Was I nervous? You bet! But I am also excited to embark upon a new phase of my life with a decision that feels timely and right.

How about you? I hope my experience helps you feel armed to follow your curiosity and, one day, transform your passion project into your profession.

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Utkarsh Amitabh is the founder of Network Capital, one of the world’s largest career intelligence communities that serves as a partner to Government of India’s Atal Innovation Mission. Utkarsh graduated with an MBA from INSEAD Business School. He is a TED speaker, Chevening Fellow at University of Oxford and a World Economic Forum Global Shaper who represented the community at the Annual Meeting in Davos. He previously worked at Microsoft and helped build India’s first smart village which was recognized in the Prime Minister’s Book of Pioneering Innovations. His new book The Seductive Illusion of Hard Work has gone on to become a global best-seller. He also writes for Mint, Economic Times, and World Economic Forum.

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