The next two and half years of my career I was at my first SaaS start-up company.
SaaS (Software as a service): A software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and centrally hosted.
Welcome to San Francisco. Where the start-up culture essentially revolves around Saas, FinTech, revolutionary on-demand delivery systems, you name it. Mention Saas on the other side of the Bay and no one will no what you're talking about. In SF though, it's a busy, booming, hot market for software and analytics - "SaaS".
I was on the accounting team for my new start up. They were essentially selling a platform for other sales professionals to sell products or services. Shoot out a presentation to a potential lead via this platform and receive detailed analytics back, thus being able to cold call when they open the link and narrow down your sales pitch based on the slides they looked at the longest. I ate it up and loved it! I learned to implement systems, worked with a number of different departments, and began playing a heavy deal desk role, working with sales and legal to help execute contracts. There was still a heavy entry level aspect to the role though with AR and collections. That part I hated. However, I loved my team and that's absolutely why I stuck around so long. If I did well, I was rewarded with a little bonus or a salary bump. My first salary bump there was $10K. I went from $60K to $70K in just a little over a year. I'm going to share salary and titles in this blog because personally I find it so hard to gage yourself professionally sometimes. How much are my peers making? I can see their titles on LinkedIn but I have so few friends I can genuinely talk about salary with. A handful are obviously inflating their take-home when they constantly brag, and others like myself just prefer not to share at all. So, while my industry and profession may vary from yours, hopefully it will give you some perspective.
So, I was making $70K annually and working in tech. That also meant all the exciting start-up benefits - stock options, free snacks in the office, scooters and Z Boards to ride around the office on, amazing team outings with oysters and all the artisanal cocktails you wanted, kegs in the kitchen, I had it all.
Or so I thought. I took an optional course on human happiness one semester in college and I always think back to it. The conclusion was that there is no finite definition of happiness and that with every achievement, it is human nature to eventually set a new goal. Your satisfaction and 'happiness' is short-lived and eventually becomes old news as you reset your aspirations. Suddenly you deserve better than your at once exciting, new career opportunity. Your new car is now a few years old and a better model is out. You get the idea. It was time for another move.
