Taking the Leap

The night before I quit my job at Google, my parents reminded me of how proud they were of me.

They didn't know I would be quitting the next day, and it would take weeks before I mustered up the courage to tell them.

I empathized with their initial shock and their gut-wrenching anxiety.

My dad's a mechanic. My mom's an assistant at a dental office. Both had never set foot on a college campus.

My parents sported callouses, bad backs, and tired hands, so it was incredible to them that my definition of "an honest day’s work" only involved typing on a keyboard and contributing to meetings.

"Phil, you've come so far."

Quitting a "good job" wasn't easy to rationalize.

Leaving the financial stability my parents could only dream of seemed like a betrayal of all the sacrifices that unlocked these opportunities for me.

I had proudly embodied their American dream, yet I wasn't happy. I knew there was more out there.

Aligning Work With My Values

I'll set aside any feigned modesty for a second and say: I'm really freakin proud of what I did at Google—from launching YouTube TV's advertising platform, scaling Android Messages to 1 billion users, and starting Google Photos' first growth team.

Being in a leadership role at Google presented many interesting product and strategic challenges that impacted a massive scale of people.

But my happiest moments were always more intimate.

They were the days when I felt like I helped someone supremely talented do their job just a little better.

Specifically, they always involved some combination of:

• Truly understanding how someone thinks, how they form opinions, and how they ultimately make decisions.

• Synthesizing complex ideas and communicating them so they become useful.

• Feeling like they can depend on me to be in the trenches with them, working tirelessly to help them reach their potential and achieve their goals.

As my career at Google progressed, I saw the natural flow of close friends and colleagues starting their own companies. Every once in a while, I'd get looped in to offer advice or be an extra set of helping hands.

Naturally, they'd recommend me to other friends, and I slowly met more intelligent, empathetic, and ambitious people.

Their sense of urgency, intense ambition, and unapologetic drive to create the outcome they wanted for themselves was infectious.

I was hooked.

Over time, what started as something I did for fun on the side—meeting extraordinary people, finding ways to help, getting my hands dirty alongside them—began drawing more and more of my excitement and energy. 

Eventually, a job I once loved seemed like a distraction from the thing I wanted to do most.

Creating Blossomer

The details didn't come all at once, but eventually, I outlined what sort of work I wanted to do.

That led me to launch Blossomer, a strategy and analytics agency designed to help founders deeply understand their customers, enabling them to make strategic decisions with clarity and confidence.

Blossomer allows me to engage in the work I am passionate about and collaborate with people who inspire me while embodying my philosophy of how business leaders should make high-quality, informed decisions.

I believe solving challenging problems requires three critical ingredients: deep insights, effective relationships, and decisive actions.

1. Deep Insights: I want the businesses I work with to understand their customers better than anyone else. These insights won't come from pretty slide decks or cookie-cutter frameworks; they require real work—effective customer interviews, setting up analytics, and optimizing customer touch points.

2. Effective Relationships: I want our engagements to foster genuine partnerships. We don't want to offer high-brow "expertise" from an ivory tower. We strive to build trust by genuinely committing to our client's success, acting as an extension of their team.

3. Decisive Action: Business leaders can focus on what they do best when we take care of the complex, time-intensive tasks that distract them. Equipped with crucial insights and dedicated support, they can learn, iterate, and execute much faster toward their goals.

Blossomer’s hands-on services, partnership model, and proven systems are designed to provide founders with everything they need to navigate their path to product-market fit and sustainable growth

💭 Parting Thoughts

I think all children of immigrant parents face this challenge to some degree: your parents want you to be happy, but they have a much narrower view of what that takes. 

So when you deviate from the path they envisioned, they worry incessantly. 

But their courage and sacrifice didn't just unlock one path; they unlocked a variety of exciting paths. 

It's our job to show them the paths they've opened for us.

Helping talented, passionate leaders succeed is the path I've chosen to pursue, and if my journey can somehow support yours, please don't hesitate to reach out.