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I moved to Paris 8 years ago, and only in the last 2.5 years has it felt that my life and career has finally picked up. I managed to somehow:
Make two big career moves at the same time (more on that later)
3x my income
Get engaged
Co-purchase an apartment with my (now) wife
Get married
Go on 12 different trips to places like Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia, South Korea, Turkey and a few places in Europe and France
And finally… I became a French citizen 🇫🇷
All in the last 2.5 years, from early 2024 to 2026. I’ve been largely quiet on this newsletter and on social media, but it’s been a pretty crazy ride 😅
And this week, I’ve started all over again…
I quit my job to go independent.
I’m now self employed.
It wasn’t an easy move. I’m losing a part of my previous income, giving up a few French social benefits, while taking on more uncertainty.
But there’s a number of reasons why I had to make this move at this stage of my life.
I already have a stable, paying client ‼️
In October 2023, I started consulting for Vaer, one of my ex-managers’ eCommerce watch companies based in the US.
I built influencer marketing as an acquisition channel for them, entirely from scratch, meeting with the team on Tuesday evenings, and working on stuff early in the morning.
A few months later, I joined Mojo, getting a product management job for the first time - which was also super hectic - I was going into the office 5 days a week to learn as much as I could from my colleagues.
So basically I spent the last 3 years learning about product management AND influencer marketing, mobile apps AND eCommerce, while working within two startups between France and California.
End result: Our influencer spend has grown 5x since I started, touching 6 figures monthly. Besides influencers I’ve taken on broader growth stuff like AI-driven internal ops to support scaling, email marketing, and site optimizations. I spend 3 days a week, and this pays all of my bills while allowing me to work remote and async.
It’s only going to get harder the longer I wait
If I found it hard to make the leap now at 29 with no kids or aging parents (I mean I have parents but they’re not very old yet lol, they’re 59)… it’s not going to get easier over time.
At this point of time I just have myself to fund, with no loans (outside of my mortgage) or liabilities. With kids in the picture, it gets a lot more complex to make the leap.
Tbh though even outside of the financial aspect of going independent, it’s a very emotionally and mentally intensive thing to do for the first time, which right now I have the mental bandwidth to take on. I may not be in a few years.
If I don’t do it, I’ll always be wondering what could have happened if I did…
Being an independent worker is something I’ve wanted to do for as long as I can remember. I genuinely believe it’s the only way towards true freedom, at the cost of stability and certainty in life. One or more of a few possible outcomes can happen:
I make the same or less money BUT have more freedom
I make a lot more money AND have more freedom
I find work that truly inspires me, and change it easily when I want to
I work fewer days a week and spend more time on other things I like
I work a lot more but enjoy my life a lot more
I start a business
I start multiple businesses
I stay a freelance consultant
I become a content creator again
It’s really, really hard to achieve the same freedom and potential upside with a full time job. It’s possible, and people have done it, but it’s really hard.
Being self employed is also hard. It’s just a different type of hard.
The amount of luck you expose yourself to when you’re self employed is just unmatched because you have the ability to take on any opportunity that comes at you.
If I don’t do it now, I’ll always wondered what would have happened if I took that leap at 29, before kids.
And if it doesn’t work out, I can always get a job again.
Also: I don’t need a visa anymore
For the last 8 years I’ve been on a some kind of a visa that required me to spend my time in a specific way if I wanted to stay in France. First a student visa, and then a work visa which (thankfully) allowed me to pursue side businesses but I always needed to have a full time job to stay valid.
Sure, I could change my visa status if I wanted to be self employed full time, but that could have jeopardized my nationality application, which would then keep stuck on a visa… which wouldn’t have been good.
Since I became French, that doesn’t matter anymore! I can do what I want!
As a bonus, I also purchased an apartment last year — which is another thing that gets harder to do without a stable full time job (banks don’t like to give loans to newly self employed people), so that’s out of the way as well.
What this newsletter becomes
I want to document this journey of starting over as a free-solo, independent, self-employed person still figuring it all out.
I tried making Instagram reels talking about it, but I find it really hard to not keep checking Instagram as a result - so I decided to delete the app for now lol. Maybe I’ll install it back and start posting reels again at some point, but for now (and in addition), I’ll be sharing my journey here on Substack!
I’m going to try my best to share everything I’m able to - the ups and the downs, the challenges and the wins, the doubts as well as accomplishments.
Next week I’ll be sharing what I’ve been working on, what my plans are, and where I’m stuck.
If you’re new here, welcome 🍾 And if you’ve been following me for a while, thanks so much for all your support all these years 🙏
— Mayank
PS. feel free to respond to this email or leave a comment below, I’ll reply to every single one 🙏
Congratulations on everything you've been able to accomplish so far! I'm sure it hasn't been easy.
Being self-employed sounds so good on paper, but I've always wondered - how does one manage to keep themselves disciplined? How do you prevent yourself from slacking off on days, or still find the motivation to get yourself out of bed on bad days when you are no longer accountable to an external entity (eg: your manager/your team/etc.)? How do you define a productive day? How do you deal with the self-inflicted (and sometimes even externally inflicted) mental pressure and anxiety of not having a stable income-providing job (as defined by society)?
These are just thoughts I've always had whenever I have tried to explore whether self-employment could be a prospective career path for me. Would love to get your thoughts on these! :)
What an action packed year, congratulations Mayank!!
Also doing something similar with instagram - I only use it on my laptop on the Brave browser and basically can't access it on my phone either. Kind of sucks sometimes for catching up with friends by not being on Insta but gives me more time as well