Anna Lukacs’ Post

In 2017, I got laid off. Zero notice. In 2024? 100,000+ have been laid off. Companies like Tesla, Amazon, Google, TikTok, Snap and Microsoft have all let people go... And more to come in 2025 with AI advancing. Why? Because... Company's don't care about you. They care about productivity & profit. The moment they can't afford you? The moment they can replace you? You're out. This is how you become bulletproof: 1. Master a skill or passion.  2. Create a brand around either.  3. Showcase your expertise via posts.  4. Attract a community and followers. 5. Give them value every single day. 6. Create a product they need.  7. Let them purchase it. What kind of products should you start with? 1. Write a book → Sell through Amazon 2. Publish a course → Sell it on Gumroad 3. Become a consultant → Clients on LinkedIn 4. Start a newsletter → Get sponsors & dealflow 5. Create an agency → Secure recurring revenue Investing in yourself is the #1 investment you will ever make in your life. It will give you FREEDOM and more security. Don't wait til you're laid off to start.  Start today. ♻️ Repost → Help give value to others 💚

* Career Update * Goodbye, Google. Thank you for 17 Amazing Years!  And Hello to a world of Possibility. 🥂 July was my final month at YouTube (Google). I reflect back with sweet appreciation for the journey I had. I’ve been unwinding during my Garden leave and will take the next 2 months to dedicate to rest and play – to get inspired and connect with those dearest to me.  For those of you eager to chat, please reach out in October :) 📌 It’s a proud feeling to help a company 10x. I’ve seen it stretch, flex and course correct, witnessed it evolve from founder-led, and wrestle with culture during growth, acquisitions and during layoffs. And leading at YouTube to scale partnerships during its coming of age moment, was a blast! I love that my thumbprints are on the dials I tweaked and turned, and I’d love to do that again someday. 📌 I’ve embraced being a generalist leader. I've advised a breadth of business types: family-owned SMEs finally adopting e-commerce, to multinationals embracing mobile. I’ve been a thought partner to fashion & lifestyle brands, food and beverage companies, and across sports and entertainment. My cup is full and inspired at the intersection of creative, lifestyle, media and digital. There are strong parallels across industry lines.  Am I a vertical expert? Nope. I love transcending across industry lines. 📌 I now see my pattern: builds, pivots and turnarounds. We’re all a series of little stories and my time at Google is no different. Building an acquisition sales team. Pivoting what we package/sell. Turning around a low performing team. Reinventing how to train a 15k person sales force. I’ve done horizontal moves, Trans-Atlantic jumps, and short-term assignments. It wasn't linear, but I can see the synchronicity in my journey. It was the challenge to drive change that excited me.  I suspect that what's next will be no different. As I pause, I am quietly comforted knowing that my next story is slowly unfolding, and I will emerge eager and energized. 📌 People. Can anyone leave Google and not say what they appreciated most was the people? I’ve met lifelong friends, travel buddies, mentors, even my son’s godmother! Been to countless weddings, scheduled play-dates, celebrated new babies and mourned losses alongside my teammates. These lifelong bonds run deep. People really are a company’s strongest asset - one person has the ability to lift a whole team up. This is why I am bullish about company culture, DEI and employee engagement. Don't mistake me for an HR exec. I’m not. I just know that when we get it right - business, teams, our clients and our families thrive. If you count yourself as part of this tribe, too, maybe we’ll work together in my next chapter :) So thank you, Google. And thank you to my YouTube team who helped me mark this journey with my own silver play button. I’ll treasure it forever. 🙏

This is one of the hardest posts I’ve written, filled with a rollercoaster of emotions. After four and a half incredible years, I’m moving on from GrowthSpree — a place that has been so much more than just work for me. I joined as one of the first hires, absolutely clueless about what was ahead (spoiler: it wasn’t boring!). Fast forward to today, and I’ve had the privilege of working with brilliant minds, build something from scratch, and learning way more than I ever thought I would. Little do I know about marketing and SaaS, but whatever I’ve picked up, I owe to: My bosses 🫣 - Ishan Manchanda (the OG boss 😎), Nilesh Gupta, and Maalav Thakkar — who gave me the freedom to do all the weird, arbitrary things I wanted. You trusted me to make decisions (and mistakes), and that belief made all the difference. My team — Tapas Sharma, Sachin Saroj, Animesh Nawani, Aashiq Sheikh, Akshat Sharma, and Devender Rajput — you’ve been my rocks, my sounding boards, and my partners in crime. Thanks for bearing with my nonsense, laughing at my not-so-funny jokes, and putting up with my quirks. You all are truly outstanding, and I’ve learned more from you than I could ever teach. 🙏 The cool SaaS ecosystem — where else would I get to work with such inspiring founders, CMOs, and brand owners? Every interaction has been a learning moment. Every person I’ve worked with has left an imprint on what little I know about B2B SaaS today. These years were my foundation years, and GrowthSpree - Growth Partners For Early Stage SaaS wasn’t just a workplace — it was a space where I grew, failed, laughed, and thrived. Leaving wasn’t an easy decision (took me long enough to decide!), but I know this is just the beginning of a new chapter. To everyone who’s been part of this ride — thank you for shaping the person I am today. Wherever I go next, I’ll carry these memories in my core memory bank (no backups needed). 🙏 Cheers to all the madness, learning, and memories. 🥂

I got laid off last month. It felt like my world was crumbling. Two layoffs in a 9 months was a lot to swallow. But here's the thing: It wasn't the end. It was a new beginning. In just 30 days, I've: • Rediscovered my passion for content creation • Connected with dozens amazing professionals • Pivoted my marketing agency to serve SaaS clients • Fully immersed myself in AI The startup world is evolving fast. We need to evolve with it. My advice? 1. Embrace the change. It's scary, but necessary. 2. Network like crazy. Your next opportunity is just a conversation away. 3. Never stop learning. The skills you need tomorrow might not exist today. What's your biggest takeaway from a career setback? #CareerResilience #TechJobs #PersonalGrowth

WHY did I start posting on LinkedIn? This is a question NOONE has ever asked me. I get asked: “how did you grow to 30k+ followers?” “how do you get so much engagement?” “what tips would you give to me?” But never “why?” So here’s my why… I want to future-proof myself as a PMM. Tech layoffs, widespread AI adoption, and the landscape of the job market made me realise the future of being a product marketer is to be proactive. Being reactive isn’t going to cut it anymore. The future will involve being a PMM who cannot be outsourced by a tool, and someone who has consistent demand from recruiters at any one time. And because I have done this for my life, I know it’s doable. So outside of my 9-5 job I share my learnings and strategies of how you too can future-proof your career. This is a great time to learn, and adapt. I’m here to give as much as I can to the community I love and the industry I’m proud to be in. I love being a PMM! So if you’ve enjoyed my content so far, I’m so glad! I’m going to share more on how you too can future-proof your career. We got this PMMs. Here’s to future-proofing our careers. 🤝

Six years ago, I turned down a 6-figure job offer at Instagram Shopping to travel the world. I got rid of everything I owned and left San Francisco with a 40L backpack, my boyfriend, and $20,000 in savings. Everyone thought I was crazy. I had worked hard to break into the tech industry as a new, non-technical Canadian grad with zero work experience. I persevered through two layoffs in my first year out of school, living on soylent and $5 rotisserie chicken and crashing on couches with $3 left in my bank account. I left right when I could coast on big-tech money. Three takeaways for you: 1. You get to build the lens in which you see the world - do it with intention The best decision I ever made was to move to San Francisco right after graduating to be engulfed by the latest ideas, innovation, and scale that can change the world. In three years, I learned as much as I could about the "Silicon Valley" way of building startups. Including that as a founder, you need to see opportunities that others don't. At 26, I was like tens of thousands of 20-somethings who have only worked in Silicon Valley. I had no new ideas. I needed to get inspiration elsewhere. So, I embarked on this journey to learn from startup founders in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa—to change how I see the world and opportunities. 2. We have to keep destroying old identities to build new ones. My first college internship was in consulting. It was prestigious, but I hated it. I refused to recruit for any jobs from the career center and moved to San Francisco without a job. Then, I left San Francisco when I got a dream offer. It's hard to go against what society applauds you for achieving. Get comfortable setting new goals once you've achieved an old one, even if it means letting go of what you worked so hard for. This is how we keep growing. 3. Self-confidence comes with doing hard things. At 22, I didn’t know what I was capable of yet. I hadn’t yet done the hard things or tested my limits. It’s like a snowball. Once I proved I could do one hard thing, I knew I could do bigger, harder things. Over time, your confidence builds and you prove to yourself why you should be confident. My struggles in those first years out of school built the confidence I needed to believe in myself to build the life I wanted as a remote entrepreneur - traveling the world and building my business. I knew I could always figure it out. Do small hard things → Build confidence → Do bigger hard things → Repeat If you’re going through hard things right now, know that you’ll realize you’re capable of even more when you overcome it. *** I write about company building and the future of education. Hit follow on my profile for more posts like this one.

Are You Next In the Creator Economy Layoffs? Is the Creator Economy Here to Stay? What Impact Is The Creator Economy Having? How Will The Creator Economy Shape Our Future? Can creators survive the shifting landscape? Undoubtedly, the creator economy is experiencing tough times. Multiple companies specializing in helping creators monetize their content have laid off employees recently. Influencer marketing firm AspireIQ released 23 employees. Following suit, 100 Thieves--known for its curated roster and streetwear-inspired merchandise drops--also laid off employees. https://lnkd.in/eMycC-uV

I couldn't agree more with the insights from Lenny Rachitsky's recent interview with Bangaly KABA, PhD (YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Instacart) on career advancement. To succeed and make a real impact, remember that impact = skills x environment. Environment is everything that enables you to do great work that is outside of your direct control, including: manager, resources, team, scope, compensation, and culture. Skills, on the other hand, are things that are within your direct control that enable your success: communication (the most impactful), influence/leadership, strategic thinking, and execution. In my experience, focusing on both your skills and the environment you operate in is key to advancing your career. Just like a conductor leads an orchestra, your skills are the notes you play, but the environment is the concert hall and the audience that amplifies your impact. So thank you, Lenny and Bangaly, for articulating this so well. Your insights certainly resonate with my career journey so far. Full interview here 👉 https://lnkd.in/dMehh2iQ #CareerSuccess #ProfessionalGrowth #ImpactfulWork #Skills

When you are building products that your users don't care, someone else is out there creating what they actually need.   Yesterday, I had the absolute pleasure listening to one and only Uri Levine at the opening event of @ChaiTech organized by the fantastic Daniel Warner The energy in the room was electric, It felt like everyone was finally getting together after being apart for too long—eager to connect, share ideas, and be part of something bigger. Uri shared his journey at Waze with such a humorous and insightful perspective on life and business.  Here are my three key takeaways: 📉No Bad Decisions, Just Bad Results - You can't predict the outcome of different choices, but you can definitely tell when a result stinks. If you don't like the outcome, make a new decision. Simple as that! 🤥Firing vs. Hiring - Hiring is easy compared to firing. You know pretty quickly if you've hired the right person. Be bold—if someone doesn’t fit your team, make the tough decision to let them go. It only gets harder the longer you wait. 🎟️Build Products People Actually Need - Focus on solving real problems. When people need and want to use your product, you've hit the sweet spot. As someone who lives and breathes #productmarketfit, hearing Uri emphasize its importance was like getting a gold star from a mentor. It took Waze four years to find it, Netflix a decade, and Microsoft five years. So, have you found your product-market fit yet? If not, let's talk about how to get there. #productstrategy #enterprenurship #businessjournye #businessstrategy #businessgrowth #emproconsulting

🚨 Wake-Up Call for the Modern Workforce! 🚨 With major layoffs hitting companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, it’s clear that the job market is evolving. Now more than ever, it’s essential to invest in yourself! 💪 📚 Consider these options: -Start a blog and share your expertise ✍️ -Offer freelance services in your niche 🌐 -Create and sell online courses 🎓 -Launch a podcast to build your brand 🎙️ -Develop and market an app 📱 Don’t wait for the next round of layoffs to push you into action. Diversify your skills and income streams today! #PersonalBranding #InvestInYourself #CareerGrowth