I cofounded a billion-dollar company and left it behind to teach high school. Teaching was way harder but more rewarding than working in tech.
Agris Tamanis
- Agris Tamanis cofounded Printful, a billion-dollar print-on-demand company, in 2013 in Latvia.
- In 2020 he left to teach computer programming at his hometown's high school.
- He said he felt burned out but found teaching more rewarding than tech.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Agris Tamanis, the 53-year-old cofounder of the Latvian unicorn company Printful. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
In 2020, a year before the company I cofounded would be valued at $1 billion, I returned home to Cesis in Latvia to start my new job as a programming teacher at the local school.
I'd spent decades building businesses. Now I had to build trust with a classroom of teenagers to whom I was just another teacher.
Back in 2004, I became known for cofounding Draugiem, a Latvian social network that reached 1 million active users in three years. This was over half the population of Latvia.
We launched Printful, Latvia's first unicorn, in the early 2010s
Having tasted success, my cofounder and I started to experiment with new business ideas. In 2013, we launched Printful, a print-on-demand service for small businesses.
There were plenty of skeptics who thought we just printed T-shirts, but we saw the potential. We'd developed a unique, scalable technology, and there was growing global demand in the nascent e-commerce industry.
Printful became Latvia's first unicorn — a startup valued at $1 billion — eight years later, in May 2021.
I developed the first version of the printing software, helped build the core team, and, in my free time, packed orders at the warehouse.
Once the business started to show traction, I stepped back from daily operations. I hired people more intelligent than I was and let them get to work.
Hiring programmers highlighted the need for new tech talent
I still kept my finger on the company's growth and participated in strategic decision-making. My day-to-day focus was on Printful's work environment, culture, and employees.
Hiring was always a major struggle. There was a catastrophic shortage of programmers, and it wasn't just Printful's problem. The whole IT industry, in Latvia and beyond, was suffering from a tech talent shortage.
When the world was taken over by COVID-19, my team switched to remote work. My job taking care of our office and work environment became somewhat irrelevant.
At the same time, a school in my rural hometown had been searching for a computer-programming teacher for nearly two years. Some kids wanted to learn programming, but there were no local teachers.
A friend suggested I fill the position. I'd already returned to my hometown, so I agreed spontaneously.
Leaving the startup world for teaching was fun but challenging
I decided to temporarily step back from Printful to become a full-time teacher until the school found someone else. I worked as a full-time teacher for five semesters, from September 2020 until this January.
The teaching job was challenging but exciting.
With every new class I had to gain the teenagers' respect and cooperation. Then we'd become a team learning things together. If I didn't know something, we'd all Google the answer; students who understood things faster were my right-hand people and helped others get ahead.
Despite enjoying this job, after 2 1/2 years, I started to feel tired and burned out.
Leading a classroom demanded more energy than entrepreneurship, and coming to school was very different than coming to the office.
For one, I couldn't just show up — I had to prepare for every class to keep my students interested. I was responsible for getting these high schoolers excited about programming.
I'd set up interactive lights and blinds in the classroom that the kids could control by writing scripts. It was fun but also took up a lot of my free time. I'd spend evenings and weekends planning assignments. At one point I'd work 50 or more hours a week.
I realized how tough teaching is
The work of preparing for classes was all on me. Even in the early days of Printful I had cofounders who had my back. As a teacher, being a one-man team was exhausting.
Teaching also required me to change my lifestyle. At Printful, we had flexible working hours. At the school, I had a fixed schedule, something I hadn't had for decades.
I was drained, but I couldn't just quit and leave kids without programming classes again. My company and I found a suitable replacement candidate and agreed with the school to pay two-thirds of his salary. Meanwhile, I still work as a substitute teacher.
I stopped teaching full time in January, but I haven't returned to Printful either.
I want to be available to substitute whenever necessary; I felt that going back to business full time would make it impossible. Entrepreneurship is also demanding. Teaching is exhausting, but it brings me more joy than entrepreneurship ever did.
Teaching changed the way I approach business
Teaching reminded me of what excites me the most about business: the challenges of starting new ventures rather than navigating established ones.
Every time I entered a new classroom, it was like starting a new business. I didn't know the kids, they didn't know me, and we didn't know what to expect from each other. The excitement and challenge of the unknown made me look forward to going to work.
I'm back to experimenting with new business ideas again.
My teaching experience is helping with this work. I've learned to communicate complex ideas more clearly, so that a high schooler can understand. That makes it easier to bring my business ideas to life.
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