These Two Founders Say This Is The Right Time To Quit Your Job To Build A Startup

Samir Goel and Wemimo Abbey have come together to found Esusu, a financial tech platform empowering immigrant communities to save better, manage their cash flow, and build credit through a digitized rotational savings system. The two cofounders have raised $250,000, with Sinai Ventures as the lead investor. The two cofounders left prestigious jobs at LinkedIn and PricewaterhouseCoopers, respectively, to build Esusu on a full-time basis. Goel, 24, graduated from New York University in 2016. Abbey, 26, holds a Bachelor’s in Business Management from the University of Minnesota, and a Master’s in Public Administration from NYU.

Esusu cofounders Wemimo Abbey (left) and Samir Goel (right).

Frederick Daso: When is it time for an entrepreneur to leave their full-time job and pursue their startup?

Samir Goel: That’s an excellent question. I worked at LinkedIn for about three years, and for two of those years, I was also working on Esusu with Abbey. Today, there’s kind of this myth that to be a successful entrepreneur, you need to drop everything, take a million risks and start working on your venture. My sort of belief around that is most people don’t have the privilege or opportunity to do that. A smarter approach is to work on what you’re building on the side and validate your idea.

Some of the challenges we faced when we first started were developing the product, attracting an initial customer base, and validating our marketing was done right. After that, the biggest challenge we faced was just hours in the day.

Wemimo Abbey: I left my job at PricewaterhouseCoopers in mergers and acquisitions. Esusu isn’t our first rodeo since we’ve done different entrepreneurial ventures before together. Esusu is unique because we have the necessary mindset, we work well together and we have a plan that to hold ourselves accountable. Now, we are just executing against the strategy.

Daso: Fantastic. How did you guys manage to fund Esusu on the side, and how does navigating that challenge impact your ability to provide financial services for immigrants using Esusu?

Abbey: Great question. We have done three things. While we were in corporate America working for over two years on this idea, we came up with a plan. How do we prepare ourselves to…