Tech Layoffs As an Entrepreneurial Muse: Bouncing Back Through Self-Made Entrepreneurship
Nothing derails your mental health like a sudden layoff from one of the tech giants you thought would never let you go. All you've known was how to fulfill your job description in the tech industry, and now the company has given you the boot.
Unpacking the layoff surge of 2024 reveals that 124,000 layoffs occurred during the Great Tech Reset. Intel reduced its global workforce by 15%, while Cisco Systems plans to lay off another 7% of its workforce.
The statistics are shocking, but some incredible people are doing something about the layoffs, inspiring others to follow.
Fortunately, some stories from experts in similar positions will change your outlook. A few resilient founders embraced the entrepreneurial journey with their previous experience, some introduction courses, and optimal marketing techniques.
Where are these founders today? Male and female founders worldwide have been in your shoes, experienced the tech layoffs, and used their hands-on experience to follow new career paths that led to them becoming successful entrepreneurs.
Discover the real entrepreneur stories that inspire and revolutionize how you think about the entrepreneurial journey, enabling you to leverage your previous experience with tips for entrepreneurs to ensure your smart business idea competes with the best.
How the Great Tech Reset Drives a Need for Transformation and Innovation in the Technology Industry
Layoffs.fyi, a layoff tracking website, confirms that tech giants like Miro, DropBox, Docker, Meta, IBM, Apple, Google, and many more laid off 165,269 tech employees in 2022, which was the start of the Great Tech Reset, only coming second to the Dot Com bubble.
Additionally, companies like Redfin, GoPro, Dunzo, Matter Labs, BeReal, and PayPal laid off another 264,220 employees in 2023. Add those numbers to the 143,142 the same website tracked in 2024, and you have a total of 572,631 tech layoffs in the last three years.
The entire industry took a hard turn, and career paths were forcefully and suddenly redirected. How has the Great Tech Reset changed the technology industry landscape? The number of layoffs reveals that companies aren't hiring; they're using AI.
Staffing industry analysts show that 30% of companies have replaced real tech experts with artificial intelligence in 2024. However, successful entrepreneurs are rising from the ashes and refusing to take the layoff snowball effect with a light heart.
Instead, statistics showing a sudden surge in business applications may reveal answers. The United States Census Bureau reveals that 426,170 business applications were received in September 2024, with a monthly surge in business applications beginning in 2021.
Additionally, the US Department of Treasury confirmed that an average of 430,000 monthly applications are received for small businesses, entrepreneurship, and startups in a recent press release. Some layoffs have resulted in brilliant professional development initiatives.
Real Entrepreneur Stories From Real Business Owners Transforming the Tech Landscape
Some technology industry layoffs led to inspiring yet real entrepreneur stories that show lots of opportunities for anyone willing to dedicate a few hours per week to some introduction courses on the basics of entrepreneurship.
Commit to learning some business principles that could transform a business plan into a working innovation in a couple of weeks. But first, discover real business owners who started as tech layoff victims and became successful entrepreneurs.
Alphonzo Terrel - The Hot "Spill" That Made Social Media More Inclusive
Alphonzo Terrel had a business plan right after Elon Musk's mass layoff when purchasing the X brand (formerly Twitter). Terrel tweeted that it was time to build something new hours after he was booted from his 3-year management position.
He had a business strategy to compete with Musk's not-so-demure X acquisition. Terrel and his former tech colleague, DeVaris Brown, began planning the Spill app to thwart typical challenges facing legacy social media platforms like Meta and X.
The app's name was a Gen Z salute to the phrase "Spill the Tea." It offers a space where people can socialize in a safe, inclusive, and non-judgemental community. Musk's X takeover has led to too much hate speech, which Spill aims to eliminate.
Alexander Whedon - A Stealth Operator Leading Under-the-Radar Success
Alexander Whedon is an AI, ML, and NLP specialist who co-founded Stealth Startup, a tool that allows startups to operate in stealth mode to avoid competition visibility. Stealth digital marketing techniques help a business strategy enter the market without being an example for other companies to steal their business ideas.
Whedon's business strategy was to use his previous experience to create a startup capable of helping other startups pursue greater business growth plans while flying under the radar to ensure competitors couldn't develop digital marketing techniques better than theirs.
However, Whedon was a former Meta software engineer who was booted during the mass layoffs. Meta may replace many tech employees as an industry giant, but Whedon helps startups creep up the digital marketing ladder without being noticed until they become giants capable of competing with the likes of Meta.
Henry T. Kirk - A Chained Google Servant Turns Into an App Supplier
Henry T. Kirk once worked proudly alongside his colleagues as a software engineering manager who co-founded Google's product experience teams. However, Kirk was part of Google's mass layoffs before collaborating with former colleagues on a new project.
Kirk, Stephen Phan, Randall Spence, and Rob Moore founded Studio.Init, another tech startup revolutionizing industries. The company, led by six former Google employees, developed a drive-thru app for coffee orders that required no waiting.
The team also developed a real estate digital marketing app, a sports betting web app, and a late-night social app. Ironically, the team also delivered projects like Google App widgets on iOS and the Google Maps application for Apple's WatchOS.
Elevate Business Growth Plans With Entrepreneurship Education, Online Courses, and Professional Growth Opportunities
The Publications Office of the EU published education and training monitor results that show that only 48% of students partake in practical entrepreneurial training. Online courses are an option on a tight budget once you're laid off.
The growth opportunities of introduction courses for only a few hours per week could make the world's difference, allowing you to join the real business owners who have already made a difference, including non-binary, male, and female entrepreneurs.
Real-life business owners who were booted during the Great Tech Reset transformed multiple real-world business scenarios into a reality with introduction courses to understand the basic business principles and how to plan a business budget.
The Columbia Business School has multiple online courses to teach non-binary, male, and female entrepreneurs the basics of planning a business budget or implementing a business model, how to strategize business growth plans, and how to implement basic business principles.
The Columbia Business School has online courses for the basics of entrepreneurship. The Columbia Business School also has an entrepreneurship through acquisition course.
Here are more courses available at the Columbia Business School:
Alternatively, aim for a master's degree in entrepreneurship at grad school right here in Germany or use business courses to manage business finance and engage investors. For example, Coursera's Key Technologies for Business Specialization is an IBM course that helps students gain basic business management skills.
Additionally, IDEO University's Designing a Business course can provide tips for entrepreneurs to implement the right business model or business plan, manage a business budget, and forecast the business finance for iterative launch phases.
Ultimately, our go-to-market strategy consulting can guide you through every process to ensure the business finance, model, and strategy align for successful entrepreneurship. Additionally, our business consultancy provides coaching services with ongoing tips for entrepreneurs.
We've long coached the entire industry, ensuring startups, entrepreneurs, and real-life business owners have every tool, follow every regulatory standard, and deliver the ultimate products or services based on their innovative business plans.
Join Real-Life Business Owners Using the Right Business Model for Successful Entrepreneurs
Drive your new career journey and entrepreneurial experience with a team that has hands-on experience helping startups become the transformations they dream about daily. Contact us today to discuss your needs.
What can we provide to elevate your new career journey?
An entrepreneurial experience with go-to-market strategy consulting
Expert advice about FinTech acquisitions and investments in the EU
Growth opportunities with our ongoing FinTech consultancy services
Project management support services and expert guidance for using the ultimate product development techniques
Lots of opportunities for digital marketing optimizations for market entry in Germany
Access to the latest FinTech news to update your business model and strategy
Furthermore, we have entrepreneurial coaching services to kickstart your entrepreneurial journey, give you the tools necessary to embrace success, and elevate your self-entrepreneurship game in any industry.
Summing Up the Tech Layoffs Turned Entrepreneurial Muses
Become the next Terrel, Whedon, or Kirk. Embrace lots of opportunities that come with layoffs, particularly in the digital marketing, tech, and product development sectors. The resilient founders mentioned in this article are merely three examples.
Some female founders turned hobbies into businesses, while others leveraged ties in learning business principles to establish exceptional emotional health. Expert advice and stories of people who transcended the layoffs enable more resilient founders.
Transform the stories from experts into your digital marketing or entrepreneurial experience. Launch your online business, dabble in entrepreneurship education, and enter a self-made entrepreneurship realm with the many inspiring entrepreneurs.
You don't need to be a professor of entrepreneurship to make a success of self-made entrepreneurship. Instead, bring your real-world business scenarios and ideas to our table. Let us develop the ideal business model, coach your strategies, and deliver excellence.
Contact us today to discuss available business finance, the need for investors, and the market entry strategy to ensure success, or use our entrepreneurial coaching services to elevate your chance of success. Let's transform your smart business idea into real-world business scenarios for successful self-made entrepreneurship.
