🐧 From Software Engineer to CPG Founder | Josh Wang

‍Today, in 10 minutes or less, you’ll learn:

• 🥘 From tech to high-protein Indian foods: Josh’s entrepreneurial journey
• 👫 Lessons learned from managing two businesses with your spouse
• 🤑 How much Josh made before quitting his full-time role and why
• 🫶 Why personal branding is crucial when transitioning to a new industry

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🫓 From Software Engineer to Starting a CPG Brand | Josh Wang

Josh was born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee. As a teen, he helped his parents open and run a neurology practice which was his first experience with entrepreneurship. He attended Dartmouth College, where he met his now-wife, Diksha (Dee) Gautham. In their senior year, they started their first venture together, an online recommendation engine for finding your perfect perfume or cologne. 

After graduating with a degree in Computer Science, he moved to San Francisco with Diksha, and they both worked in tech. Diksha quit her PM job in 2018 to launch Boss Body Revolution, an online fitness and nutrition coaching company empowering South Asian women to live healthier lives.

In 2023, they moved to Houston, where Josh also left his tech career to launch their latest venture, Jōsh Foods, a CPG brand that makes high-protein Indian foods. Jōsh, pronounced JO-sh, in Hindi, means strength, passion, and drive–qualities our foods bring to your table. 

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Tell us about your career journey.

My career has been a series of pivots. 

I started out making mobile apps.

I leveraged that expertise to make libraries for mobile developers and then developer tools and platforms.

I joined Opendoor to a platform supporting their various mobile apps, then switched to working on the IoT Platform team, where I was promoted to engineering manager.

During COVID, I was laid off and moved back to Memphis, where I helped my parents manage their neurology practice through the lockdown, incorporate the practice of telemedicine, and open a new office.

At the same time, my wife’s online fitness and coaching business was taking off, so I was helping her grow her business as CFO.

After COVID slowed, I joined two ex-Opendoor leaders as the founding engineer at table.ai, an AI analytics startup, and we moved back to SF. 

I eventually left the startup and worked as a career coach for other software engineers.

This year, we moved from SF to Houston and started Jōsh Foods.

‍

You’ve gone from software engineering manager to career coaching to Co-Founder of Josh Foods. What inspired you to make each career pivot?

At the core, each represents a desire to expand my horizons and grow in a new way.

1. Going from IC to engineering manager allowed me to develop the skills to manage a team, have hard conversations, and grow those around me.
2. After working at startups, I ventured out and tried career coaching as a solo entrepreneur because I wanted to have more control over my time and try building a business myself.
3. After working in tech for a decade, I saw Jōsh Foods as a challenge of building a different type of business and learning about an entirely different industry.

All of these pivots were exciting for me as new challenges and opportunities for growth.

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What are 1 or 2 things that helped you to make these pivots successfully? How did you handle fear and imposter syndrome?

The pivots where I’ve had the most success in growth have been ones where I’m not running from something but towards something.

Make sure you know what you’re hoping to accomplish or gain with each opportunity so that you don’t just take any opportunity that comes your way. That will lead to burn-out and resentment. 

When I joined table.ai, I already had experience as a software engineer on product teams and a manager at a hypergrowth startup heading to IPO. But I wanted the experience of building a company from scratch and taking an idea from its infancy to a fully-fledged product, the “zero to one” experience. That’s what got me excited about the founding engineer position.

In each new pivot, I leveraged an existing strength from my background or network:

1. When I was promoted to manager, I was already seen as a leader on my team informally, so it was not that big a risk for my manager to promote me. 
2. Building my brand as a career coach for software engineers was made easier by my background in Tech as well as a YouTube channel I had made previously helping people prepare for technical interviews.
3. The decision to start Jōsh Foods was made easier because Diksha already had an enormous audience of health-conscious Indian-Americans from her business, The Boss Body Revolution.

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Currently, you’re building two businesses with your wife. What have been the learnings from working together?

Building a business with your partner can be an extremely rewarding experience if you can find a way to work together well. Here’s some things we’ve learned over the years:

1. Get good at disagreeing with each other in a productive way. Whether in your personal life or work, you will frequently need to make decisions that you aren’t 100% in agreement with. Instead of arguing or delaying the decision, figure out how to work through the disagreement together so that you can move forward.
2. Make space for each other—physical space. We each have separate offices where we work, so we aren’t spending 100% of our time in the same room. Moving from SF to Houston was a huge upgrade in our quality of life because we finally had a three-bedroom place where each of us could have a home office. 
3. Divide and Conquer - Carve out separate roles and responsibilities for each person and let them run with it. It helps if the roles highlight their zones of genius. Diksha is the CEO of BBR and I’m there to assist as CFO (I’m naturally a numbers guy). I’m running the show at Jōsh Foods, and Diksha runs marketing because she is amazing at creating content that connects with our audiences. 
4. Make time for each other by scheduling meetings. We schedule meetings to talk about BBR and Jōsh Foods separately. We respect each others’ time and we make sure that we also make time for our personal relationship.

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How much did you make when you made the decision to quit your full-time role and transition to coaching?

I had made less than $1,000 before quitting my full-time role. This was a giant leap of faith, but a few things made it less risky financially:

• We had enough saved up in case we needed to dip into savings.
• I had negotiated an advisory role with my startup to stay on after leaving and continue receiving health insurance.
• Diksha was making stable income through her business BBR and could support us financially.
• I had the ability to jump back into software-engineering since I still lived in San Francisco at the time.
• We set a 3-month runway to see what my take home would look like as a career coach before pivoting. 

Fast forward to now:

1. Right now, the vast majority of our family income is from Boss Body Revolution. It’s been almost 7 years since we started, so this is more stable.
2. I’m winding down my career coaching business which has lumpy cash flow to focus on Jōsh Foods.
3. I’m still helping with my parents’ business and we get health insurance from that.
4. We are bootstrapping Jōsh Foods and it has yet to turn a profit.

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What have been the downsides of taking an unconventional career path?

1. Sometimes it’s lonely. When in tech, there were so many groups to go to for support, mentorship, or just to have fun. When you’re working on something new, by definition not many people have done it before so it’s harder to find friends or a community.
2. If you are jumping to a different industry like me, your professional network and background don’t carry over. I took for granted how much that opened doors for me in tech. 
3. It’s hard to walk away from a high-paying stable tech salary for an uncertain financial future. Make sure you have your finances in order because you will face many unforeseeable setbacks.

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What is one non-obvious piece of advice you give to people looking to switch from tech to an unconventional career path?

You are a brand. Whether you want to or not, everyone has a personal brand. Even not having social media says something about you. 

In tech, we often focus on the product features and sometimes even eschew branding/marketing. But it’s an important part of how you and your company will be perceived and received by your audience and potential customers.

Your personal social media can help attract the right people to help your business. It can attract potential customers, help gather feedback, and even business partners or future employees.

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Where can we go to learn more about you?

Follow us on Instagram:

• Josh Wang
• Dee Gautham
• Jōsh Foods
• Boss Body Revolution

Or reach out to me on LinkedIn.

🌐 Beyond your borders

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🌇 A $20 Million Net Worth Should Be Enough To Live Happy And Free (FS)

🇸🇬 How I made my first million in my early 30s (Peek)

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