I Quit My Job for Ambii!

Hello, Ambii Co-Founder Jake Motta here!

As the title suggests, today I’ll be discussing why I decided to quit my job of 3.5 years to work full-time on building a startup, but before I get there, I’d like to talk a little bit about my background, my previous job, and where I foresee Ambii within the next year.

About Myself

I graduated from San Jose State University in December 2017 with my bachelors in Computer Science. I am your run-of-the-mill small town individual who enjoys long walks to the fridge, gaming, and technology. I am very passionate about tech, and when it comes down to working (especially with tech) I am second-to-none in dedicating myself to completing the goals that I set.

I started working with Shariq Shah in June of 2017 on an interesting idea that he had come up with, a music collaboration platform called MusiQ. At the time, this project had piqued my interest as something that would be of benefit to me for both programming experience and application use, as it would help solve the constant power struggle of music during car rides with my girlfriend.

As time passed, we gained more and more attention within a small club called Ideas at SJSU, a club dedicating to nurturing startups within the school. With a solid startup idea and the excellent networking skills Shariq possessed, we were able to slowly build up a small team of core engineers who have helped shape our product into what it has grown into today.

Through the next 6 months our team steadily grew, gaining more and more members skilled in areas such as graphic design, business/marketing, front/back-end development, mobile development, and even artificial intelligence. At this current point in time, our team is roughly 16 members strong!

I’ll spare many of the details on transitioning from MusiQ to Ambii, and the many experiences, trials, and tribulations we’ve had along the way for the sake of sticking to the main point of this post, but know that this will be covered in detail shortly in the future as a separate post!

Previous Employment

Getting back to the main topic, Ambii was going from a project to a product very quickly. Throughout all this, I had been working about 30 hours per week at Microchip Technology (on-and-off full-time depending on my school schedule). I had been working at Microchip since I began attending SJSU late 2014, working hard every day to gain industry experience and make a stable income for myself in order to survive in the Silicon Valley.

Employees at Microchip taking a drone selfie. I’m in the back!

My job at Microchip consisted of many different responsibilities, but really boiled down to IT support and global software compliance. I was a very strong and recognized team member, and loved my team there. I can honestly say that my time at Microchip was well invested as I gained many real-world experiences and concepts than I feel I wouldn’t have had the chance to experience anywhere else, all thanks to the fantastic mentorship of my direct supervisor Agnes Lau.

I will admit that I may have overstayed my welcome at Microchip, being initially hired on as an intern for a 6-month period and then staying for 3.5 years, but the job provided me the freedom and finances to finish my education and steadily support myself through the years.

As Ambii grew, my desire to invest more of my time and effort only grew with it. The problem at hand was that working part-time at Microchip took more than half my day away, and rendered me mentally exhausted by the time I was finished. Add on to the fact that Microchip helped pay for all of my bills, it was hard to see any foreseeable future of leaving in order to pursue my passions.

This may not seem too much of a big deal to many, but let me break down my general expenses in the Silicon Valley:

• Apartment = $1,680 /mo
• Apartment Utilities = +/- 200 /mo
• Internet = $60 /mo
• Phone = Payed for by Microchip
• Food = $300+ /mo
• Fun = 😦

In total, I spend a rough $2,400 per month to live in the Silicon Valley, so quitting the job which pays these bills for a startup which currently pays $0 was no easy decision to make.

To be a bit more clear on my highly competitive $0 income, this means that Ambii is not currently revenue producing and has no funding at this time. In short, the goal is to fix that.

I doted on my decision for about 2 months, first switching from full-time to part-time, and eventually part-time to no-time. I came up with a full financial plan that granted me financial security for 6 months with no-income, and then set the plan into motion. With a swallow of confidence, and trust in my friends, I eventually worked up the courage to leave Microchip and focus everything on Ambii.

One saving grace for me is that after 3 years of working, I have built up a solid savings account… plus I don’t have any other financial obligations (loans, debt, kids, etc) to worry about, so I am at the perfect time in my life to (literally) bet everything I have.

The point of listing out my expenses is not to showcase anything other than the gravity of my decision to go from a financially stable job (with a possible future had I taken it) to a small startup with no income, all in the name of believing in the work that I am a part of.

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goals – Henry Ford

The Future of Ambii

With that said, lets talk about Ambii. Currently, Ambii is gearing up to release its public beta sometime in March 2018 to web and mobile devices. We are working hard to finish this beta in order to gain our initial audience, get important feedback and testing results, and make any necessary changes before expanding out to our first few businesses. We aim to be revenue producing before May 2018, and receive funding after that in order to grow our team, our marketing, and our product.

Ambii is a unique platform which is unlike anything on the market today. We have many ideas in the back of our minds that we are eager to implement, but need to finish building our base application and audience before we are able to branch out on all sorts of fantastic new features. From music that follows you everywhere you go, to a social platform which helps you discover music in ways never before seen, Ambii aims to revolutionize the way that you experience music, because music is better together.

Please be sure to support us by liking us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn (links on the right), and by keeping up with all the latest Ambii news here on our blog! We very much appreciate your support and feedback, and hope you look forward to our future endeavors.

Jake Motta