I thought my career was going nowhere, but then...

everything clicked all at once. And now I’m starting over :)

BTW if you don’t want to receive any more emails from me, please unsubscribe. Link at the bottom. No hard feelings! I’d just rather keep this community of people that really want to hear from me.

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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 🇫🇷

Taipei, October 2025.

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…

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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.

My fav spot at the Mojo office

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 🙏