Jason ✨👾SaaStr.Ai✨ Lemkin@jasonlk
There's so much advice out there, maybe here's my best advice of all:
🙏Never Leave on Bad Terms🫂
Somehow, this became common in the 2021 era, and never went away. Most folks, from the CRO + CMO level to the IC + SDR level:
- Just disappear and leave with no notice, just a Slack note or DM and then gone that day
- Write snarky things on LinkedIn / X
- In general, burn bridges on the way out, often without even realizing it
I get it. Layoffs are now omnipresent. Pressure is higher. The world has changed. Maybe "loyalty" is a thing of a bygone era. Maybe it never existed at all. Maybe companies don't do what it takes to earn any loyalty anymore. Probably they don't
But my advice is this: imagine your goodbye lunch.
Remember those? When everyone would take folks out when they gave their notice? Joke about the good times, and the less good times? How everyone would thank them, including their manager.
Imagine that. Leave that way.
Not because you need to, or own them anything. You don't owe them anything. But because you'll see them again. Not next week. But down the road.
Most of us go from startup to startup, leader to leader. Reference checks aren't what they once were, it's not that. It's that someday, you'll see them again. And you may wish ... you'd left on better terms.