A few months ago, my cofounder left ZenSearch. It felt like I was laid off again.

It was unexpected and caught me off guard. Sure, there were signs leading up to his exit, but I convinced myself it wouldn't happen for a while.

I was in shock. Frozen. Numb.

For a few days...okay, weeks, I went through my normal ZenSearch tasks—writing posts, networking, adding companies to our database.

I didn't tell anyone. I was embarrassed. I was scared.

I asked myself over and over, "What am I going to do now?" My identity, my future, was thrown into chaos.

Sound familiar?

There were a few options: •. Close down ZenSearch – I still felt (and feel) there's potential. My users love it. I love it. I quickly discarded this option. •. Keep ZenSearch going, but don't make any changes – luckily, it's stable. It could continue with minimal changes indefinitely. But that's not how you grow a company. To me, this felt pointless. •. Continue building ZenSearch – this is the path I chose.

It's been hard, really hard.

I've been vibe coding. I don't have a choice. I'm not an engineer, and I can't afford to hire one. It's frustrating. It feels like two steps forward, one step back, and unfortunately, some days, one step forward, and two steps back.

It's led to problems with the site. Maybe you noticed the lack of new jobs today? (It will be fixed by tomorrow.)

But it feels good too. Good to push myself in ways I haven't in years. Good to learn new things. Good because if I can conquer this, I can do anything.

I can't help but notice the parallels with losing your job. You didn't choose it. You certainly don't want it. But it's where you are.

Your options are similar to mine: • Give up – not possible or desirable for most of us. • Keep doing what you've always done – it's a viable option, and probably the safest in this job market. • Challenge yourself to do something different, possibly something you always wondered if you could do – knowing it will be tough, excruciating even. But the payout has the potential to be empowering and freeing.

It's taken me a long time to be ready to share this. And I'm sure my finger will hover over the Post button for a few seconds more than usual. But sometimes, you just need to take a chance. Deep breath.

You've got this!

----------- Check us out at ZenSearch.jobs and share our platform with anyone looking for something new. Together, we can make job searching a little more zen.