10 Decisions That Changed My Life as a Founder

What I’ve learned since leaving full-time work to build on my own.

Hello everyone 👋 I’m Kate Syuma, and welcome to Growthmates.news — the newsletter where we explore growth stories to inspire your professional and personal growth. Join the community of 6,700+ Product, Design, and Growth people from companies like Amplitude, Intercom, Miro, Atlassian, Grammarly, Framer, and more.

---

Today’s topic is very special to me. It reminded me to reflect on my individual entrepreneurship as a Founder of Growthmates, and how it transformed the way I look at work ans life today.

Before we start, I want to remind you about “The Creator Path” rubric in Growthmates newsletter — the place where I collect inspiring stories beyond the tech world, reflect on my personal journey as a creator, with the purpose of inspiring your personal growth.

In the previous June edition, we discussed what it means to be a creator in the world of AI. And today, I want to invite you to a little (and, frankly, vulnerable) journey, where I reflect on decisions that led me to an independent journey.

Join and self-reflect along with me 👇

My Path as a Founder: 10 decisions that changed me.

There were many decisions that shifted something in my life, but since I started my path as a Founder, my mental model has completely changed. Here are some decisions that had the biggest impact on my career change:

Feeling inner freedom (not always like that 🙃).

1. I stopped relying on my employer to guarantee me stability and success.

This decision opened the door to start an independent path and leave my comfortable leadership position at Miro, which came with a six-figure paycheck.