Why Quitting Tech is the Scariest Thing I've Ever Done

Welcome to the third edition of Joy's Black Creator Breakdown, a digest of the Black Creator Economy from a Marketing Manager turned Digital-Creator-Voice-Actor-Creative-Executive.

Brave is not a word I’ve traditionally used to describe myself. Confident? Yes. Creative? Absolutely. But bravery seemed reserved for heroes: first responders, frontline workers, activists… people who put their bodies or reputations in danger for a living. Imagine my alarm, only a few weeks removed from my four and a half year tenure on the Instagram Consumer Marketing Team at reading this response to my announcement video – “You’re so brave.” What have I done?

I’m currently a voice actor, actor, digital content creator, and Creative Executive Officer at Joy Ofodu, my self-titled creator company. However, my career identity has been conveniently and proudly associated with Instagram for the entirety of my full-time work life. I started an Instagram as a Teen Community Intern on the community team in 2017 while Mike and Kevin were still leading the organization. I tenaciously dedicated myself to discovering niche communities and highlighting small and medium businesses on the platform. I studied under the tutelage of Berna Anat, another USC Alumna who ironically quit technology to become a creator years before I did.

This was my dream job because before that, I thought I was bound to be a marketer in the film industry. I was Lucasfilm's or Star Wars’ first marketing intern and learned what it meant to protect a global brand for the first time. Soon, technology called to me and showed me that I could still be a global, visionary marketing leader, but with the comfort of a free dress code, fine dining available at all hours and numerous employee resource groups to help me integrate back into the Bay Area, my home. Who could turn down chartered buses, free updated phones and laptops, VR technology, weekly audience to Mark Zuckerberg, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger? While the rest of the advertising industry speculated on what then-Facebook would launch next, I had highly-sensitive, unfiltered access to product roadmaps, company activity and became an equal custodian in the brand vision for years to come.

Everything that happened during the internship was the stuff of movies. I couldn’t have written it better. Of an intern class of almost 1,000, I was selected to go live with Sheryl Sandberg to inspire women to get into tech. Suddenly, at 20 years old, I was an influential voice at the largest social media company in the world.?

After my summer internship, I got a full time offer to join the Instagram organization in San Francisco in 2018, and I started as a Brand Marketing Coordinator (a title I chose). This is not a story of a competitive or toxic workplace. This isn’t a story of clawing my way to the top among jealous peers, but rather one of being a rare baby bird in a growing nest. I felt extremely found at this company. The app had scaled to 1 billion users, and I played an active role in that scaling with partnerships programs like Share Black Stories, for the Black community in the United States, the U.K. and Brazil. I was mentored by marketers on my team, who had ten to 15 years more experience than I did.?

Over the next four years, I would oversee the marketing creative development of more ads than any other Instagram marketer, review global brand applications of the Instagram Brand, and inspire millions of people to download Instagram. I received the first Black@ community impact award from Ime Archibong and I would go on to represent the company in more than 30 speaking engagements, interviews, and events. I co-created Instagram's first sponsorship of a music festival (Afropunk) and co-authored our very first competition for Reels creators (a short filmmaker competition with Howard University and Melina Matsoukas, in which we gave five creatives $10,000 to make films).

I had access to personally refer over 200 applicants to Facebook, Instagram, Meta, a couple who still work there today and managed millions in marketing budget, available to meet my personal and team’s goals. No product, no program, no feature was off limits to me. It felt like anything I wanted to do at Instagram, I could, and that freedom resulted in me producing what will stand as some of the most meaningful and memorable work of my career.

So why would I walk away from that? Why would I spend a year debating the scariest move I’ve ever made, which is quitting my first and only guaranteed job? And if I had an overqualified resume, excellent references, the potential to return to the workforce at any time - why was it so scary?

First, the financial climate. It seems like since the pandemic began, everyone has been decrying an impending recession and the glaring results of U.S. income disparity. I observed a pattern of businesses shuttered and companies as high-profile and adjacent as Twitter and Snapchat laying off volumes of employees. To make matters worse, I was reminded of the adage “marketing is always the first to go.” I was reminded that I’m a woman and African American – two identifiers in my industry that can be used to advantage storytelling but not always interview candidacy or offer rates. I was terrified to think that my passion could drive me to a financially unstable place, and that my demise would be entirely my design as nothing other than a career change greatly inspired me to leave Instagram. This reality is unacceptable – I just bought a home and have myself and future family to support with my success. Quickly, I became worried that the pressure to out-earn my Zuck-sponsored living would make me un-funny, inspire me to choose less aligned partnerships and distract me from the joy of unrestricted creativity.

My next demon was the potential of the shift itself. I left Instagram because it is time for me to fully lean into my talent, which is making people laugh in a way that inspires them to heal. For the past two years, I've reached more than 15 million people online with my original digital comedy videos, often in short form. My original videos have attracted marketing partnerships with HBO Max, Dove, DirecTV, Netflix, Adult Swim, LinkedIn, Mented and a bunch of other amazing independent Black-owned brands. This traction frightened me just as much as it encouraged me. If this is what I can accomplish in my spare time, imagine what would happen if I gave myself to this craft fully?

The unknown is nerve-wracking; it’s clear from my messages that I’m inspiring people beyond what I can currently understand. I receive messages from complete strangers every single day that my dating comedy, or Daily Shine meditations have inspired them to leave toxic relationships, to push through tough hospital recoveries, to forgive themselves, to date again after divorce, to download a dating app and give it a try, to get degrees and accolades and enter careers that I have never entered or attempted myself. I didn’t want to take a leap of faith until I could better understand what I said or how I delivered messages to inspire each action in my audience. Just as much as my performances have the power to validate, comfort and educate, they also have the power to harm, frustrate and alienate. It’s a deeper fear than getting canceled; I don’t want to cause unintentional harm to my audience just by being me.

The threat of creator burnout loomed. Even from inside Instagram, I could tell from industry reports and firsthand accounts that the pressure to perform an online personality, to post consistently, to keep up with new product features and combat algorithms that can be oppressive if unmonitored or untreated – was exhausting. I thought, “I already have a penchant for burnout. Am I stepping from one demanding industry into another?” Furthermore, understanding the fallacy of entrepreneurial freedom of schedule: “Is this really a healthier choice than working 40 hours a week at someone else’s direction? Can I trust myself to manage my priorities and time as I draft creative briefs, pitch brands, track finances, hire freelancers, perform in my studio, fly to speak on stages and churn out 5-10 videos per week?”

Finally, I’ve developed high creative tastes with budgets and agency teams to match, but if I quit my job, I’d be making a choice to abandon any guarantee of the resources I need to bring big ideas to life. I wasn’t completely without proof points: I had secured brand partnerships and even a prize grant before that suggested @JoyOfodu was worth something independent of Meta. But I’ve been producing short form video for two years, and as I've scaled to reach these millions of people, they've been begging for a longer show in the comments. I feel like I have a responsibility to entertain and upgrade the production to what they deserve, and what could be considered career growth for me as a marketer of my reputation. But Joy Ofodu doesn’t have multi-millions and a full staff to create with; she has a few thousand and an awesome executive assistant.

Despite my fears, I knew I had to act. As a marketer, I can choose to be pretty good at managing multiple global brands, or I can be undeniable and record-breaking in managing one, my own. Working 40 hours for Instagram and 10-20 hours for my brand was no longer sustainable nor desirable. I realized that to scale my company to the place that it can be, the place that I know my audience deserves, I had to finally do the scary thing, and leave my job.?

Instead of trying to fully conquer these fears, I decided to honor them and move anyway. They’ve come with me in my decision and are not completely dismissed. The idea of not being able to afford the lifestyle I’ve earned and been privileged with is terrifying, but I can only continue pitching and producing to return to financial security. I can watch my words so as not to hurt my audience, but if I withhold or delay them, I have no audience and no more craft. My marketing benefitted from my inclusion, precision, tenacity and a series of beautiful errors; these skills are directly transferable to comedy and community-building. I need to accept that I may burnout, but that I am smart and compassionate enough to heal my body if it happens. I can enlist a large network of loved ones to serve as accountability partners if they see ugly work habits rearing. If my dating show doesn’t look as put together as Instagram’s when I first launch, that’s because it’s not. My company is a hilarious work in progress, and I hope everyone watches and laughs.

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