By KD Deshpande
A few months ago, I left my job at Facebook. It was a short ride at every product guy’s dream company. What happened? Why did I leave Facebook— the tech Mecca—in the middle of a pandemic? We’ll get there.
First, let me tell you the how.
For some background, my career began in engineering, but I dreamed of being an entrepreneur. I moved to the US from India to pursue these entrepreneurial endeavors. While studying at Arizona State University, I started a company with a professor. While that professional endeavor didn’t pan out, it prepared me for the journey and introduced me to the startup community. Fast forward a few years to 2011, we founded Vessel.io, built a team, raised funding, and sold the company in 2015.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
For an immigrant with a complicated visa situation and zero social capital in the Valley, founding Vessel was one of the best decisions of my life. I learned a lot, made new friends, and began to fulfil that entrepreneurial dream of mine. Going through acquisition and then integrating into the parent company was another unique experience that showed me what I was made of. (I’ll save the acquisition topic for another day—but if you know, you know.)
Since then, I lead product teams in top-tier companies and learned from exceptional leaders but, deep down, I always had a nagging feeling that didn’t let me settle in a job. I thought about new ideas in my spare time and spent nights and weekends trying to hack something, anything. Even though my job was rewarding financially, something was missing.
Let’s all agree that it takes courage to face our fears and to take action.
I joined Facebook in March 2020. I felt like this was the final destination—the job I had been working my whole life towards. But I quickly realized that I was performing the same drill on a larger scale. Getting hired at Facebook made me feel like I was finally reaching that last round, but when I got there, I looked around and saw I was in the same place. I asked myself: Do I really want to do this? Is this IT? I was so focused on believing that this job was THE job that I was afraid to admit—even to myself— that the life I wanted was outside this campus.
When you’re stuck in your thinking, it’s time to make a change. Growth and change can be painful, but nothing is as painful as staying stuck.
Once I decided to give in and follow my heart, things became crystal clear. As a leader, if you are honest with yourself, managing everything and everyone else around you gets easier.
Following my heart, I am ready to make new mistakes.
I’m building a new company called Simplified | Digital design and collaboration platform— a powerful digital design platform that helps you create content, scale it and collaborate with your team like never before.
Simplified is the modern way to build your brand without hassle and chaos.
Powered by design, Simplified is for other founders, freelancers, and teams that have been waiting for a beautiful, powerful marketing machine to meet them where they’re at.
I believe the “Future of Creativity needs to be simple, collaborative, and accessible to all.” After years of launching companies and building teams, Simplified is the tool that would have saved me & my team’s time, energy, and stress.
Yes, I’m building a design platform, but what I really promise you is more time. Time to LIVE. YOUR. LIFE. As entrepreneurs, we push ourselves hard. I know the grind—the 24/7 hustle of making a name for yourself. Standing out in the crowd is a constant struggle; your existing tools are either too complex, or you have too many of them, and all the tech-powered design tools are neither collaborative nor accessible. But what if I told you that things could be different? That you could save an hour, 5 hours, or a day that you’d usually spend worrying about all the above? What would you do with that time?
Whoever you are right now, reading this, you chose this life because you wanted freedom. You wanted to live your life, your way. Simplified will make things easier for you and me. Less stress, more growth, and more time to do what matters to you. Simple.
As my community, I will reach out to you for help and guidance. I’ll be building this in public, with you, for you. Follow my journey here #BuildInPublic
