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I came and left SF within 90 days...

by Sukhpal Saini

I packed up my bags, left for the Toronto airport, thinking I was permanently moving to SF. 2 months later, I was back at the same airport, and I knew it wasn’t the place for me.

SF is THE Mecca for startups. Listen to any podcast, read any LinkedIn post and you’ll only see people praising SF and how if you don’t today you’re missing out.

The biggest favour you can do to yourself is to understand your success equation. There’s a million ways to be successful, to make money but you HAVE to pay attention to what your body is telling you, what feels natural. I could rob a bank and have a lot of money but that’s not something I’m down with.

When I went to SF, I was expecting a beautiful utopia where people are building cool things everyday, having fun, and just vibes everyday.

What I was greeted by instead was kinda the opposite:

  • Crime & downright awful homelessness

  • Insane prices everywhere

  • Anxiety

Anxiety of the hidden expectation in the air. Anyone you meet - it’s all talk about tech, AI, raising rounds every minute. Suddenly, you start feeling less than - “if everyone’s killing it, why can’t I?”

And that is a dangerous place to be in. It’s a spiral waiting to happen - no one talks about the spirals. You only hear about how this person is buying a new office, how that person got to $10M revenue overnight, how this team is gonna be the next X.

So much pressure, so many expectations, I couldn’t stand it. I didn’t feel I could do my best work staying there.

The very next day, I left and I couldn’t be happier.

You see, when it comes down to it, you make your own luck. It doesn’t matter what anyone says what should do, all that matters is what do you want to do.

Now I run a successful startup from my bedroom in Brampton and I couldn’t be happier. You can just do things.