Why I’m Unquitting Full-Time Roles

I'm joining Dropbox Full-Time after 5 years as a solopreneur.

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Last week, after being an interim for 8 months, I accepted a full-time role to lead Growth at Dropbox.

For some, this seems like a major plot twist: I was a proud solopreneuer, I’m always talking about interim roles, and I even wrote a post about why I quit full-time roles! 

So, what’s going on? 

Well, to understand this decision, you have to understand the context of what took me out of the full-time path, in the first place:

My Solopreneur Journey

I started my career very much on a traditional career path, with a clear goal: get into leadership and possibly even become a CEO one day. That was the dream.

I had become a VP of Growth in my late twenties, led large teams, and had good company logos on my resume. But… I felt lost. It seemed as though everything I had worked so hard for wasn't at all what I had hoped it would be.

I was ‘successful’ professionally on the outside, but on a personal level, things were not going well. The weight of "mommy guilt" was crushing - I agonized over not spending enough time with my children. My relationship with my husband suffered due to the lack of quality time together. I gradually lost all my friends because I simply had no time for them. As I kept climbing corporate ladder, my career increasingly defined me, and I was losing my sense of self.

But that wasn’t even the worst part. The stressful nature of my work had a huge impact on my health. I couldn’t sleep through the night—and when I did, I was writing and rewriting Slack messages in my sleep. I frequently skipped meals, relied on wine each night to unwind, and found myself becoming increasingly short-tempered, agitated, and perpetually tired. That’s when I started using WHOOP, a device that measures your Resting Heart Rate and Heart Rate Variability. I was shocked to discover that my vital signs were similar to those of an 80-year-old woman on the verge of a heart attack.

This was a wake-up call I couldn’t ignore. I decided then and there that I wouldn't become just another typical Silicon Valley statistic—a 30-something suffering a heart attack on the job.

So five years ago I quit my full-time role. 

And had nothing else lined up, which was absolutely terrifying but intentional—to give myself room to figure out what I should do next. This is where my solopreneurship story started.

I didn’t leave my full-time job to become a solopreneur. In fact, when someone first called me that, I had to look up the term—I was clueless about it. I quit… to find another full-time role. I wasn’t ready to give up on being an operator; I just wanted to be selective and find a position that was a good fit for me: one that I would enjoy, where I could maintain physical health, and that would also allow room for a personal life. I had heard of such roles and believed they existed, but I was skeptical about finding them through the traditional recruitment process. Why? Because every interview I attended felt the same—it was all about selling (and even flat out lying), from both sides. The entire process seemed designed just to get a butt in the seat. No thank you.

So, I decided to start doing advising as a method to select my next full-time job. I gave myself a six-month window to ensure that my resume didn’t develop a significant gap and I remained relevant in the market.

I applied what I call 'Growth 101 tactics' to myself, treating my brain as a product. My monetization model already had a full-time ‘SKU,’ but I wanted to introduce an advising ‘SKU’ to the market. My ultimate goal was for one of my advising engagements to convert to a full-time ‘SKU.’ Advising was an adjacent use case to me, so I needed to find Product-Market Fit (PMF) for it. PMF involves understanding a problem, offering a solution, and having a distribution system. The problem I had a lot of expertise in was companies needing help scaling or introducing Product-Led Growth (PLG) business models. My solution was to offer my expertise, specifically where there wasn’t yet the need for a full-time VP of Growth or they were promoting someone in-house and wanted to set them up for success. I was going to meet my advising clients on a weekly basis for an hour and help them with anything ranging from PLG strategies to execution details. My positioning was: Scaling or introducing B2B PLG. I kept it very niche to differentiate myself, but in the big enough moat (TAM) and fast moving waters (space was growing). My distribution channels to find new clients were my LinkedIn and Reforge community. Reforge helped me get started—I had actively participated as a featured guest in many courses and was known for my growth expertise, which provided me with initial traction. LinkedIn was my diversification from Reforge dependency.

This strategy quickly brought in my first few clients.

I was surprised to learn how much I enjoyed advising. It was patterns galore—instead of building a deep sense of expertise in one company, I was able to see the trends across ~10 businesses at the time. It was fascinating. I truly realized that nobody’s problems are unique and I began developing frameworks for solutions. 

As 6 months passed, I stumbled upon my first interim role from one of my advising clients—Miro. I took it. This was my first pass into true solopreneurship as I began introducing even more SKUs to the market. I expanded my offerings to include my own Reforge courses (starting with the Experimentation course, then Monetization, Growth Leadership, and PLG course), paid public speaking engagements, growth workshops, interim roles, and this newsletter with paid archives and sponsorships (This diversification is what distinguishes a solopreneur from a freelancer, who only have one ‘SKU’).

I built up financial stability, found the work very interesting, and gained full independence. I was a happy solo camper, and my initial 6-month trial turned into one, two... five years of being solo.

.… which brings us to last week.

Back in the FT game.

After five years of thriving as a solopreneur, I decided to take a full-time role with Dropbox. But why, especially after loving the independence I had?

One of the major lessons for me over the last few years is that careers should not be linear. The goal for everyone should be to create as many options as possible, enabling you to make the best choices at any stage of your life. My solopreneur journey was nothing short of transformative—it revitalized my health (my heart vitals are normal!), strengthened my marriage, brought me closer to my children, and taught me SO much about PLG. I even expanded my personal ‘positioning’ to include product-led sales! I am genuinely happy and fulfilled. 

My initial engagement at Dropbox was on an interim basis (just like Miro, Netlify, Amplitude), but I found myself in a particularly amazing team (it’s always about the people in the end, isn’t it?) and solving a problem that was squarely within my superpower zone which I wanted to see all the way through. Dropbox was also willing to make it worth my while financially and respected my personal boundaries (no work after 6pm, non-negotiable 1 hour at the gym, and lowered travel requirements). So, after 8 months as an Interim, I converted to a full-time role. This approach allowed me to completely de-risk this choice, and I could not be more confident in this decision. 

Having the option to choose between continuing as a solopreneur or taking a full-time position is a privilege I don’t take lightly. I worked really hard to not *need* a full-time job, but choosing to accept one that was right for me. And after this role runs its course, I will return to solopreneurship. Because once a solopreneur, always a solopreneur :) And to be clear, I will be maintaining my solopreneur foundation with this newsletter, the Reforge courses, and my advising roles (although speaking engagements and most growth workshops will need to be paused). 

Should you still explore being a solopreneur?

The most valuable career advice I can offer is this: don’t fixate on becoming an executive, or a founder, or a solopreneur, or [insert your dream role here]. These shouldn’t be seen as ultimate goals but rather as options you should work to have available to you. Aim for the ability to choose your path freely at any point in your life. 

Career optionality is a priceless key that unlocks many doors.

Thank you for following along with my journey so far—there will certainly more twists and turns ahead. But as I’m focusing on growing Dropbox for now, I can’t wait to share all of the insights I’m discovering with you!

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Edited with the help of Jonathan Yagel, checkout his awesome Substack.

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