Turning My Part-Time Business Into a Full-Time Job

In the summer of 2002 I had the opportunity to work in the electron microscopy lab at the University of Connecticut following my freshman year of college as a Materials Science major. I had zero lab experience outside of high school chemistry class, but I suddenly found myself sitting in front of and running electron microscopes that cost upwards of a few million dollars. Since the first time I laid hands on one of these powerful microscopes, I've had the "microscopy bug" so to speak (now you understand why there's an image of a bug in this article). The passion for running electron microscopes never left me, even though my career path was often steering me away from hands-on microscopy work.

Throughout my professional career I had the opportunity to operate dozens of different types of microscopes of different varieties including Scanning Electron Microscopes (SEMs), Transmission Electron Microscopes (TEMs) and Focused Ion Beams (FIBs). While my true passion was running electron microscopes and performing chemical analysis on complex samples, my corporate job was continually pushing me to become a project manager/paper pusher.

To continue my passion for electron microscopy and specifically SEM, I decided to start my own business in 2014. I had always wanted to run my own business but was too afraid to make the leap and the thought of spending tens of thousands of dollars on a desktop microscope to "test" my business idea of starting the first SEM rental business made me sick to my stomach. Speaking of sick, at this same time my father had just been diagnosed with stage 4 bile duct cancer and was told he only had 6 months to live. My father was an accountant and ran his own business for over 30 years, he was also the person I admired and went to for advice regarding business and life. I distinctly remember the conversation with him which led to me finally deciding to go for it and start my business. It went something like this:

Me: Dad, I've been thinking about starting this business for awhile, but buying one of these microscopes is a HUGE investment and I don't know if the business concept is going to work.

Dad: Well, let me ask you this: What happens if the business concept completely fails and no one wants to rent these microscopes?

Me: Well, then I'd be sitting here with this microscope I just paid a lot of money for....

Dad: Which you could probably still sell for pretty close to what you paid for it. Here's the thing, if you don't do it now, you'll never do it. You're young and even if your business fails, you'll be fine.

Me: I guess you're right!

Fast forward over 7 years later and a lot has changed. My dad passed away in early 2015 which left a huge hole in my life. My daughter came along in 2017 and made life start to feel much better, but I still wasn't happy in my corporate job. In 2021 I found myself no longer working for the same company I signed on with back in 2006 after a large merger. In addition, downsizing had led to a huge increase in my workload and I was only supposed to be working a part-time schedule. I found myself increasingly frustrated by having to put in more and more hours at a corporate job doing tasks that were removed from hands-on microscopy. While my dad was no longer there for moral support, I kept replaying this conversation above about starting my business and thinking that jumping into it fulltime was what I needed to do to be happy and maximize my career potential.

I should note here that although my company was still small at this point, it was significantly larger than when I started it. We now had 3 desktop SEMs and were renting systems all over the US. We had more demand for SEM rentals in 2021 than we could fulfill, so I knew at this point that my business model was actually working. I was still terrified to quit my job which provided me a steady paycheck, benefits and 401K, but deep down I knew I needed to walk away. The discussion I had with my boss was a difficult one. I told him I was leaving after 15 years of working for the same company, but walking out of the building that day I felt a huge burden lifted off my shoulders. I've always been a self-starter and while the thought that I was no longer relying on another company to pay my salary would terrify some people, it didn't seem to bother me (check back in 6 months to see if this is still the case!).

For whatever reason, that week in October was a particularly challenging week and I had a more serious talk with my wife that I was thinking about quitting. We talked about it for awhile and much like my dad talked me into starting my business, my wife reassured me that even if I failed, we'd still be fine. Ironically, on the exact day I quit my job, I came home to my wife who showed me a positive pregnancy test....we now officially had our 2nd kid on the way! I was a bit in shock to say the least. Either one of these pieces of news would have been life changing, but to have them happen on the same day was mind blowing. Rather than second guessing myself, I took it all as a sign that this is how it was all meant to happen.

I can't tell you how good it feels to wake up every day and get to go to work doing what I love, which is growing my company and continuing to run SEMs. I spent a lot of late nights and weekends working on my business part-time to get to the point where it could be a fulltime business, but to me all those extra hours were worth it. For those of you out there looking to turn your side hustle into a fulltime job all I can say is "keep going"!

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