"I’m passionate about the blogging community and how we can help full-time bloggers create better content.” That was the answer you would’ve gotten if you asked me why I started Nuffnang 10 years ago. I never thought about the money or the success, what drove me was a pure mission.
In the following years, I was fortunate to have some success in the company we started, finally registering it as an IPO in 2015. Building Nuffnang to where it is, even before the IPO, brought a modest level of financial freedom; my wife and I went for holidays around the world. We travelled business class, stayed in five-star hotels and bought expensive goods, like bags and watches. Sure, we didn’t outwardly flaunt it on social media, but we wouldn’t be honest with ourselves if we said that peer pressure didn’t play a role.
This in turn affected my work life. I no longer had the passion for what I did. If you asked me why I still stayed in Nuffnang, or what is now known also as Netccentric, I stopped answering in the way which I did when I first started the company. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I think it revealed that I was no longer passionate about what I was doing.
I found purpose in my family life, as a father, a husband and a son, but the same cannot be said for my career and personal life. So I decided to make the difficult decision of leaving the company I founded. I wanted to start something new that I was passionate about, something I could fully control and make my own. What I had to do was find my purpose once again, something that motivated me like when I first started.
