Jeff Mitchell

Background

About Jeff Mitchell

In 2014 I started my entrepreneurship journey in Kitchener-Waterloo’s start-up ecosystem. I put in all-nighters at The Accelerator Centre. I got to the office at 6am and stayed until 10pm. I tried to build a scalable technology company that would change the world and make me rich at the same time. The tech-bro dream that is touted at innovation centers around the world as the definition of entrepreneurial success. 🤮 I spent the better part of a decade chasing their traditional definition of success: raise VC funding! Innovate! Disrupt! 10X your growth! Scale, scale, scale! 🤮🤮 Then, I burned out. I realized I was miserable chasing a definition of success that was totally misaligned for me. I realized I left the 9-5 and had simply re-built the same trap for myself. I realized I had been climbing a ladder to nowhere. I realized I am not a revenue generating robot. There are alternative currencies that matter to me and I’m choosing entrepreneurship to achieve abundance in the things I really value: like having the freedom to work remotely in other parts of the world without having to ask permission, and being able to enjoy slow mornings with my wife. So, I have started to work and live differently. I’m not trying to make millions and millions of dollars. I’ll never pursue VC funding. I’m interested in being of service to others, but I’m not trying to change the world. The only thing I care about optimizing is the amount of time I have to hang out with Earl and Florence (my cats). The only things I feel truly ambitious about are being a good husband and friend, and being in control of how I spend my time. For the past two years, my wife and I have spent our time building a small business that we plan to keep small, while creating abundance in the other areas of our lives that matter, like having location freedom. We spent 51 days working and living abroad in 2023 as Digital Nomads. This year, that will increase to almost 90 days. We both pull a salary of about 100K / year from our small business, and that is more than enough for us. My mission is to be a permission-free, ambitionless entrepreneur. I’m focused on growing new lines of income in areas that are of interest to me, not as an end goal, but a means to an end: to design life on my terms, without worrying about all the nonsense that is valued in traditional entrepreneurship circles. Email: jeff@lanetwo.ca IG:@theambitionlessentrepreneur