Thinking of a Career Change? Try the Minimum First
Borrowing from startup-speak, try a Minimum Viable Career Test
Lately, I’ve had some interesting conversations with friends who are “mid-career” and contemplating a change in direction. They’re not just thinking about a move from one company to the other, doing roughly the same work. Instead, they are pondering something more radical—say, shifting industries, moving from a late-stage corporation to an earlier-stage startup, or taking some form of an entrepreneurial step. They are usually driven by some combination of boredom with their current path, a desire to take more control of their future, and a realization that there are only so many years left to go for something “big.”
People come to me for advice on this topic because I’ve made such leaps a few times, and I’ve survived the jumps. Regular readers might think I quickly answer, “Go for it!” But in reality, I usually advise looking closely before you leap in a way that lets you try before you burn the ships.
My Book Writing and Speaking Experiment
My father was a management consultant, and as part of his work, he wrote books and made speeches around the world, returning home with stories and souvenirs for my sister and me. His career sparked my own interest in writing and speaking as I began my career in business. For many years I thought this could be a career path for me—I imagined seeing my work on a bookstore shelf and getting paid to visit exotic locations and entertain multitudes of interesting people.
Flash forward a few years, and I was a partner at a fast-growing digital advertising agency when brands began to put real marketing dollars into websites, banner ads, and email campaigns. I led our client success, strategy, and new business teams—as well as marketing for our agency. Marketing for agencies is tricky because they all do the same stuff—or fake it until they are paid to make it. So we needed an angle, a difference, a point-of-view in our work.
I looked across our projects and realized there was a commonality—the vast majority involved using digital tools in a meaningful way to clients’ customers. Examples included an online meal plan for people with diabetes for Abbott and a banner ad for Pringles that people chose to click over 90 times. I coined the phrase “Marketing with Meaning” and first tested the concept at a client event.
The clients loved my presentation, and so did our CEO. He encouraged me to turn it into a book we could give to our current and potential clients—thus turning “Marketing with Meaning” into our differentiated POV. I liked the strategy, but I also thought, “Hmm, maybe this could test my interest in a writing and speaking career…”
From there, I took baby steps in this direction while holding a very busy day job at the agency. I started a blog to build up my writing skills and content. We hired an agent to guide us through the publishing process and an editor to polish my writing. Around two years after the original idea, I saw my book published by Mcgraw-Hill and sitting on a shelf at my local bookstore.
That’s when we started getting paid speaking offers. Again, while juggling my day job and working angles to build our agency business, I flew to speak at events everywhere, from San Francisco (Authors@Google) to South Dakota and from Sao Palao to Dubai.
While on the road, I got to meet much more successful, big-name authors+speakers, and when we were backstage together, I had the opportunity to pick their brains. I’ll never forget hearing them explain “the game” to me: You come up with a trendy concept, crank out a book, do the speaking circuit, then do it all over again.
It was quite an experience, with memories I’ll treasure forever, but it didn’t take long for my interest to fade. Hearing about the grind of travel and “cranking out” books didn’t feel great. And after giving the same speech 50 times to audiences that were usually distracted, the fun faded. I realized that I probably wasn’t making much of a positive dent in the world, and my role was just to occupy an hour of conference time before happy hour.
My book tour ended, and my day job continued. I got to explore a career jump without making a big mistake.
The Minimum Viable Career Test
If you’ve been in or around the startup scene, you likely have heard of a Minimum Viable Product. The idea is that startups have very limited time and money, so they need direct feedback from customers as early as possible to learn and adjust. A Minimum Viable Product is the most basic version of your startup idea that solves the customer problem. It can be a prototype mobile app, a human doing the work behind the scenes, or a mock-up using PowerPoint slides. It’s bare and usually ugly. But if you make it look too good, you’ve wasted time. When done well, the Minimum Viable Product significantly improves the odds of a startup’s success.
My related advice for careers is to explore the path that intrigues you by launching a Minimum Viable Career Test (MVCT), as I did with writing a book and speaking for a living. I’ve done this in several other ways:
Startup Founder - This was something that appealed to me since the first time I logged onto AOL in 1995. I got to test this path while volunteering for a startup called Kozmo.com in NYC while I was getting my MBA. Then while in marketing at P&G on Tide, I partnered with dozens of startups. This gave me confidence and contacts to make the leap, which turned out great.
University professor - I love to teach and fondly remember the impact of outside speakers during my college years. A part of me wondered about this path, so I built relationships with professors. I’ve been a frequent guest speaker at classes, and I’ve published research with them. Through that process, I realized it was not a great path for me. I can’t stand the bureaucracy and would miss building businesses.
Investor - I thought this could be an exciting career path, and had a chance to kick the tires by doing part-time work with a VC group in town after leaving my agency once our sale was complete. I also personally invested in a few VC funds. And I didn’t love the work. There’s a significant imbalance of power that didn’t feel right.
Market Research Consultant - For a couple of years, I had a side business doing concept testing for startups and investors. The idea was to take the concept approach I learned with big brands during my years at Procter & Gamble and bring the cost and complexity down to the earliest stages. The business was profitable, and companies got value, but most were more interested in “passing a test” (a.k.a. validation) than learning and improving. Not for me.
Board member - I did two multi-year stints on non-profit boards. One was a “working board” where we were way too hands-on. The other was very hands-off. I also was on the board of an early-stage startup. In all cases, I think I added value and enjoyed the people I worked with, but it was incredibly hard not to make decisions as a company leader. I’m much more of an operator.
Attorney - This one goes WAY back to high school when I did a stint on our Mock Law competition team. I was interested in law and loved strategy+competition. But I hated having an elected judge give a verdict versus something more representative and “fair.” I bailed after one competition and saved myself a lot of frustration, heading toward a career in business where a marketplace of customers decides the winner.
Building your MVCT
There are a few suggestions I can offer for people looking to test career paths. First, you’ve got to sit down and do some soul-searching. Why are you looking for a change? It’s got to be more than running from something in your current job or magical thinking that the grass is greener. The potential path should make you naturally curious and not what all the cool kids are talking about. There is no easy ride in this economy, and you can be sure that starting over in a new area will come with significant learning pains.
Second, don’t quit your day job. Instead, carve out time to experiment on the side. This must be a hands-on commitment of some kind and not just job shadowing. You need to make it happen in a room where it happens.
Want to write a book? Start by writing ten blog posts—and make time by waking up an hour early. If you can’t sacrifice time from somewhere, then that’s a sign that this leap is not interesting, important, or urgent enough for you to succeed at that risk. Here are some other ways you can embed yourself in a career test:
Volunteering - Sit on non-profit or for-profit boards, or be an advisor or active mentor. Organizations are always looking for free help!
Side hustle - Everyone should have their own side business for consulting or freelance opportunities. Create an LLC, build a basic website, get a logo, and add it to your LinkedIn profile. You might find more people tap you for this side work when they know you’re up for it.
Get paid to learn - Try to work this test into your day job. In a corporate job but curious about a startup? Then partner with startups in support of your business. Bigger companies may offer “broadening assignments” in different countries and/or business units. Mention a desire for this in your next annual review.
I think it’s healthy for all of us to continually explore alternative career paths. It makes life interesting, increases your knowledge, expands your network, and perhaps most importantly, you will gut-check your personal path. If you look at the experiments I outlined above, you might see a theme: I’ve learned that I’m best at being a builder of companies. My tests in teaching, consulting, and investing reaffirmed that I’ve got the right direction in my career.
Bob Gilbreath is a 2x-exit entrepreneur and co-founder of Hearty, a curated matchmaking service that combines top software developers with early-stage, venture-backed startups.