Why Getting Fired Made Me an Entrepreneur
18 Dec 2025 · 1 min
0:39
Feras got laid off in 2003, couldn't find work, and started a business with a friend despite having no sales experience. The layoff forced him into entrepreneurship out of necessity.
Feras got laid off in 2003, couldn't find work, and started a business with a friend despite having no sales experience. The layoff forced him into entrepreneurship out of necessity.
I always joke and say I was forced into entrepreneurship. So in 2003, I was at a cutting-edge startup here in Silicon Valley. One day the CEO walked into my office and said, hey, Feras, you have a minute? I said, sure. He usually doesn't do that. And he shut the door and sat down and he looked at me and said, hey, Feras, we have a layoff tomorrow and you are impacted. It was a pretty horrific event in my career. But yeah, I couldn't get a job. For 2 months I was sending resumes every day. I couldn't get one interview. So I spoke with a friend of mine and he said, How about we start a business together? So we did. I had zero experience in sales, but we figured it out eventually. So yeah, that's how I got into entrepreneurship.
