What made you choose the company/product you’re building today?
At the beginning, my reason was very simple: I needed a job and I genuinely liked the product.
I graduated with a Marketing degree, but I never felt like I belonged in agencies or similar environments. It just wasn’t for me. At the same time, I didn’t have much experience in tech either. So I took a leap of faith and applied for a Customer Support role, almost blindly.
The early days were tough. I had no technical background, no real understanding of how apps were built, and everything felt overwhelming. But the product itself became my motivation. I started from the most basic things: learning simple technical terms, understanding how an app is structured, and slowly exploring how everything works behind the scenes.
The more I learned and experienced, the more I realized something unexpected: I actually enjoy technology, and I’m more intuitive with it than I ever thought. Yes, there were struggles. Yes, there were moments of self-doubt. But I always had a reason to keep going.
During a period when I was facing my own mental health challenges, I truly understood the purpose of this product. It wasn’t created just for users, it was created for people like me, and for young people who feel lost, disconnect, or unsure of where they belong.
I know this industry moves fast, and change is constant. But I believe that sometimes, moving a little slower with intention and care helps us build something more stable, meaningful, and genuinely valuable for users.
And that’s why I chose to stay, grow, and build here.
How about your story?
Replies
Thanks for sharing :). Love the whole journey and especially your note at the end about intention and care.
I simply want to build something that helps with my personal life and the friends around me. It's always been this really. Many engineers like big scale and highly performant systems -- e.g. "we process billions of transactions a day" is something that they'd be proud of. When I joined Facebook, I was really surprised that about 2/3rds of engineers wanted to join backend / infra / platform teams as opposed to product engineering. But for me I get really happy when people around me use something I've built and it's helping them somehow, even in a small way.
Murror
@dougli I believe that great things often come from the simplest beginnings. A small impact can turn into something much bigger than we ever expected. Of course, we all aim for success but without depth, no product can succeed in the long run. The real question is whether we’re chasing a short-lived explosion, or building something truly meaningful that lasts. I love that you've realized what truly matters to you and choosing to go on your own way.
Thanks for sharing your story. Love the fact that you "took a leap of faith." I think that's one of the similarities most people who enjoy working in tech share.
For me it's always been people #1, mission alignment #2, pay #3, then familiarity / industry / anything else. Whether it's tech, finance, or else, the 'who' really matters more than anything else.
Murror
@harryzhangs Exactly Harry, I totally agree that the people is always the first priority. At the core, the key and the problem always come down to "human". Working in a startup truly requires alignment not just in skills, but in vision and values among the people building it. Thank you your thoughts
For me it started with a very specific frustration. I kept noticing how much time teams were spending fixing small layout and consistency issues that shouldn’t need a designer every time. Nothing was technically broken, but it constantly slowed momentum.That problem is what drew me to work on Layyyyout. I related deeply to the problem it was trying to solve, and it matched how I think about building day to day.
Working on something I personally experience has made it much easier to stay invested and push through the messy parts.
Murror
@syed_hassan9 Like you said, when we build something base don our experiences, we will find any way to make it work no matter how it challenging us. But I believe that when we can solve the problem, it becomes a huge successful for ourselves.
@monatruong_murror Exactly. When it comes from real experience, quitting doesn’t really feel like an option. You keep adjusting until it works and even if it’s hard, it feels meaningful.
I think your "needed a job and I genuinely liked the product" reason is probably one of the best-case reasons to join a new project. It's a real treat to be able to work on products you actually enjoy using yourself.
My day job is running a software consultancy, but I built @Known Names in my free time as a way of solving my own problem with remembering names. It's a completely free app, so it's not "paying the bills", but that also freed me up to build an app exactly how I wanted it.
I also enjoy the 9 to 5 client work I do, but I think we all do better work (and better enjoy our work) when we're lucky enough to work on things where we like and use our own products as you've found with @Murror.
Triforce Todos
I also started with no experience and found something I really enjoy. It’s true, challenges really help you figure out where you truly belong.