This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jason Shen, the 40-year-old founder of Refactor Labs based in Brooklyn. It has been edited for length and clarity.
I’m the founder and CEO of Refactor Labs, an executive coach, and a cofounder conflict expert.
I spent two years at Etsy as a product manager, working on the seller-facing mobile app. After being laid off in a round of mass layoffs, I did contract product work for an early-stage B2B SaaS startup and completed the TED Residency, an ideas incubator, where I gave a TED Talk on the future of hiring.
I founded Headlight, a tech hiring platform, in November 2017 with a former Etsy teammate. In 2019, we did a hard pivot into voice AI products for gaming, renaming the company Midgame. In July 2020, Midgame was acquired by Facebook, now Meta.
I worked as a product leader at Meta for almost three years and voluntarily left the company in June 2023 to take a sabbatical before focusing on growing my company. I had started coaching founders on the side while at Meta, but didn’t seriously spin up my business until January 2024.
My cofounder and I weren’t planning to be acquired by Meta
It wasn’t the outcome we set out for, but with NYC and much of the world still in lockdown, it was a bit like an emergency landing with an out-of-fuel plane.
Working at Meta really expanded my skillset. I learned how to advocate for my team during product reviews with VPs and ship social experiences to millions of people while leading multiple product teams simultaneously. The people were sharp and creative, and I enjoyed working with them.
Over time, my life turned into overcrowded meetings, document reviews, and keeping up with too many feeds. The company was in constant flux: I survived multiple managers, reorganizations, and layoffs. The money was great — my target cash compensation, including salary and bonus, was about $250,000 at the time — but I couldn’t see myself doing this for another 20 years.
I stayed longer than I had at any other company
At the time, in addition to my cash compensation, I was vesting 230 Meta restricted stock units, or RSUs, per quarter. Had I stayed another three years at the same vest rate, I would have vested 2,760 more. At a recent Meta share price of about $609, those unvested RSUs would be worth roughly $1.68 million before taxes.
In preparing for leave, I set aside a chunk of money that I was willing to give up to build my coaching business, mostly by selling off my portfolio. That ended up being around $150,000.
The second half of your 30s is when you start to have a clearer sense of what you’re suited for and where that will be valued
At Meta, I was running a resilient community of hundreds of people, facilitating workshops, and mentoring folks earlier in their careers. All of that counted toward “organizational impact,” which accounted for only 10% of my performance review. What I loved doing most and was best at was not what the company paid me for.
My mom was a gymnastics coach, and my dad was an educator and community leader, so coaching came very naturally to me. I worked with an executive coach at my most recent startup, and he helped make that company more successful than my first. Two of my professional contacts had made the leap to coach full-time in recent years and were happy with their decision, so I thought I could make it, too.
Leaving to start a new business still felt risky. My wife and I were trying to start a family, and I realized I had to take my shot because there was no way I could launch a business while caring for a newborn. If I didn’t make it within a year, I planned to get another PM job and receive parental leave before the baby arrived.
I spend about 20 hours working each week and still make a good living
I made $369,000 in revenue in the last 12 months. That sounds pretty good, but I have expenses like credit card fees, marketing, software, coworking space, and health insurance. Most of my clients are on monthly retainers, while my clients navigating cofounder conflict typically buy three-month packages.
Most of my job is joining Zoom calls. By and large, I love and respect my clients, which is a big perk of running your own business. I used to have an executive assistant, but I’ve learned how to use AI to save time and stay on top of my client work.
Some people love the idea of creating experiences that reach millions, but that feels too abstract. I love seeing my clients find conviction in themselves, grow their businesses, and improve their relationship with their cofounders. That feels like a tangible impact to me.
I get to spend my time on creative projects, fitness, and family
I’m working on a book called “Deep Ambition” about how recovering overachievers can escape shallow ambition and build a remarkable life on their own terms. I’m also training to set a personal best in the Murph challenge.
At 5 p.m. on weekdays, I take my daughter to the playground or for a stroller run. We do dinner at 6 p.m., then bath, milk, and bedtime by 7:30. I promised my wife before we had our daughter that I wouldn’t let kids get in the way of her career, which is creative, noncorporate, and very important to her.
I’m grateful that I left Meta when I did
Do I wish I had a few extra million bucks in my bank account? Sure, but it doesn’t work like that. I would have had to grind for that money for years. My workweek is now so much less frantic and stressful than it was when I was a PM.
I’m only three years into my business, and there’s still room to grow. One of my goals is to surpass the total compensation I earned in Big Tech. I’m aiming to get there by 2028. Hopefully, I’ll also be a dad of two by then.
It’s a really competitive job market right now, with so many companies laying off workers, and I think some experienced tech workers could find coaching or consulting more satisfying than they expect. It takes courage and nontrivial resources to get off the ground, but in the end, it can be so much more fulfilling.
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