I got laid off, and so will you.

It came for me as it will come for you. But you own the narrative, and you own your actions. It's not the end of the road.

I got laid off. Full send, no more job for me. Pushed out of the nest, as they say. No benefits, no paycheck. To my former employer, if you're reading this, hello, and no hard feelings. However, I am going to be very honest in this one. As if I'm ever not in these.

Spoiler alert: I’m full time on my own business and we have free trials now. Check it out.

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You control the narrative

Before I totally freak you out, I want you to know that this will be a positive thing for me and it can be a positive thing for you too. 

When you're laid off you alone can control the narrative. You get to decide how to tell the story. You get to decide what you do next. When things start piling up you go get a shovel and get to digging.

I'm full-time on Divinate now. I talked about it in a previous edition of this newsletter and I'll cover it more in a bit, but I wanted to get the positive things up front.

Now... let's talk about the garbage.

Sucks to suck

Business is hard. Super hard. Sometimes the market makes decisions for you. Sometimes you make bad decisions, good decisions, and a few iffy ones that result in not being where you need to be. That's just the way it works.

I'm also sure laying people off isn't easy. It's something that you probably replay in your head over and over. There's a massive burden that comes with the responsibility of employing other humans. Good leaders take that seriously.

You know what sucks worse? Not having a job when you have a growing family. It's scary. My main focus is providing for my family. I'd do anything for them and their safety. 

Here's the thing... I wasn't really surprised. I knew this was coming this year. The writing was on the walls for a minute. I'd felt the shift, I knew what the market was doing, and I knew how the business was doing compared to what it needed to be doing as a result.

I had a professor tell our whole class while in design school that everyone would be laid off at some point in their career.

This is true for you, too. Accept that fact. If you're the rare person to dodge it forever, right on. But the chances are... you're going to be in this boat someday.

You will get that random early morning meeting added to your calendar. 

You will see your laptop has a mandatory software update tomorrow at 5 PM. 

You will notice your boss hasn't replied to you in a bit.

And you’ll be locked out of all your accounts promptly.

So... what do you do?

1. Back up what you legally are allowed to. As a designer, you need to have a portfolio. Back up files. That includes research synthesis, success metrics, and design files. Paste stuff over into a personal Figma account. Take what you're allowed. You might have NDA work or you might work in a field that doesn't allow transmitting company records at all (government, finance) and you need to respect that. It’s serious stuff. Don't get into legal trouble.

2. Start dusting off that resume a month ago. I always say "Where there's smoke, there's fire". If your company is consistently missing goals, you should probably brush off that resume. It's a good idea to have your resume fresh and ready to go every quarter at least.

3. If you used your work email to sign into a tool that you personally use and pay for, change the email. You're going to lose access to your work email immediately. If you have flights booked, communication that stems outside the realm of your 9 to 5, or tools you pay for tied to your work account, you need to change that now. Probably don't do this anyway.

4. Screenshot any compliments and kind words from coworkers in your company chat app. I do this continuously throughout my career and store it all in a folder on my desktop. When you're having a bad day while interviewing I find it's helpful to remind yourself that you're pretty good at this.

5. Take a deep breath. Obviously. You are not going to die. You are going to be okay. You control the outcome here.

6. Start applying as soon as you can. This is contrary to a lot of advice I see. People often say to take the weekend to process. There's no harm in taking the rest of the day. But I would advocate for hitting the ground running on your next thing as quickly as possible.

What am I doing?

The day after being laid off I woke up dancing. I have an opportunity to build something. To live my dream. I get to be a founder and to try to make this work.

Yes, my hand was forced, but that's okay. I wanted to jump to do this eventually anyway. What better time than now?

I'm building Divinate with my cofounder Tyler. 

Divinate helps product teams make sense of their customer feedback and product analytics super fast. Today, the MVP is focused on extracting product insights from 1:1 customer insights. Where we're headed is super exciting and I can't wait to share more as we build.

Start your free trial today and let me know what you think so far. Follow along as we build something rad!

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If you’re going to Config, see you there! I’m speaking. 😏

Thanks for your time.

– Tregg Frank