{"id":2440,"date":"2025-06-25T10:41:42","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T08:41:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/liviupetri.com\/blog\/?p=2440"},"modified":"2025-10-05T11:34:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T09:34:10","slug":"chapter-2-from-fired-to-entrepreneur-my-unexpected-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/liviupetri.com\/blog\/chapter-2-from-fired-to-entrepreneur-my-unexpected-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 2: From Fired to Entrepreneur: My Unexpected Journey"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-border-color has-global-padding is-content-justification-center is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\" style=\"border-color:#f6a21e;border-width:2px;border-radius:12px\">\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">My unexpected journey<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In my early twenties, fresh out of university, I was exactly where I thought I was supposed to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I had a good job as a software developer at Exact Software\u2014one of the top Dutch providers of accounting solutions at the time. I was good. Not just good at coding, but good at building stuff that worked. Fast. Clean. Sometimes even ahead of what the company was ready for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But I wasn\u2019t a very good employee. \ud83d\ude0a<br>Not in the classical sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Like many developers, I didn\u2019t see much sense in 9-to-5 boundaries. Or in doing things the way they were always done, especially when there were better ways. I asked a lot of \u201cwhy not?\u201d questions. Pushed for ideas that didn\u2019t fit the main roadmap\u2014like a local payroll software that, I thought, would serve a real need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They didn\u2019t see it. Or maybe they did, but it wasn\u2019t their priority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Eventually, I was asked to leave.<br>Fired. Let go. Freed. Call it what you want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I remember walking out of that building with my severance pay: 500 USD, and a strange sense of possibility in my chest. I didn\u2019t feel crushed. I felt\u2014lighter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I had no real plan, but I had two things:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"\">Time.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"\">And nothing to lose.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In hindsight, that\u2019s a powerful mix.<br>The effectuation theory people call this \u201caffordable loss.\u201d I just called it \u201cwhy not try?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I took the rough version of that payroll idea, cleaned it up, rewrote it in my kitchen, talked to a few businesses, and built something lean. It wasn\u2019t sexy. But it solved a real problem, and people paid for it. And it was built and priced for high-end customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then they told others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And from there, a small business was born. Then a bigger one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Years later, the same man who had once fired me became my partner.<br>We laughed about it. Life has a way of circling back with irony and grace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Looking back, the firing wasn\u2019t a failure.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was a fork in the road. One I wouldn\u2019t have chosen\u2014but one I needed. Sometimes what feels like an ending is just the part where the story gets interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you\u2019re standing at your own fork\u2014by choice or not\u2014maybe it\u2019s not the end of your path.<br>Maybe it\u2019s the part where&nbsp;<em>you<\/em>&nbsp;start making the map.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Curious where your professional story could lead next? I work with people building new chapters. Thoughtfully, sustainably, and staying true to themselves.<br>More at&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/futureismade.com\/\">futureismade.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My unexpected journey In my early twenties, fresh out of university, I was exactly where I thought I was supposed to be. I had a good job as a software developer at Exact Software\u2014one of the top Dutch providers of accounting solutions at the time. I was good. Not just good at coding, but good [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10,14,1,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles_cat","category-futureismade","category-general","category-entrepreneurship"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/liviupetri.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/My-Unexpected-Journey-e1759656461437.png?fit=200%2C133&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p22hT9-Dm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/liviupetri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/liviupetri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/liviupetri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liviupetri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liviupetri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2440"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/liviupetri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2483,"href":"https:\/\/liviupetri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2440\/revisions\/2483"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liviupetri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/liviupetri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liviupetri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liviupetri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}