I founded a successful company in my 20s. I’m going to walk away from that.

• Cheah Wenqi co-founded a media company with three of her college classmates.
• Seven years later, Chia quit her job due to burnout.
• She is on a career break and plans to travel for a year and a half.

This told essay is based on a conversation with. Chia Wenki, 28, co-founder of a Singapore-based media company. This essay has been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider has confirmed her employment history.

When I was in my third year at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, I co-founded a media company with three friends.

There was no conscious decision to start a company. Instead, it started as a school project for one of his classes in our class.

Some of the videos we worked on for our classes went viral, so we started looking into creating our own platform. All four of us were passionate about telling local stories, but at the time there weren’t many career opportunities in this field in Singapore.

We just wanted to be able to do what we love and make money doing it. So we decided to turn this project into a company called “Our Grandfather Story” and started working on it full time after graduating in 2018.

For the next seven years, I produced and edited videos and led the content team. During my last few years at the company, I led the product growth development team and worked on developing our YouTube page. Our team has grown to 50 employees and his best video about pay-to-dine restaurants in Singapore has been viewed over 9.7 million times.

thinking about my personal journey

All this time I was also thinking about my own journey. When I first started the company, I was a student, so I didn’t have a 10-year plan.

About five years after I joined the company, I started thinking about what was next. I wanted to think about my career more intentionally.

It first started growing in my mind during the pandemic, during the Great Resignation. They say that giving up is contagious, but I told myself to be patient. I wanted them to make decisions from within themselves, rather than being influenced by others.

My mother’s death from cancer in 2022 also had a huge impact on me. She loved her job as a human resources professional. She worked throughout her illness, even when she was on an IV.

Many of her generation work towards retirement and only then start thinking about their bucket list.

But her death on the verge of retirement was not what motivated me to make the call. Rather, it was an observation that her work over the past decade has been much more meaningful to her. During those years, she was switching between her work and her rest. I realized that was the kind of relationship I was looking for in a job.

Burnout also played a role

When you own a business, the work is rarely done. Being a founder gave me a lot of flexibility and the ability to take breaks when I really needed them. But my mind was always working, even on vacation days.

Every weekend, I thought about what I needed to prepare for the week.

My personality and the nature of the media industry also influenced my burnout. TikTok never sleeps, and Instagram never sleeps — in fact, TikTok comes alive when everyone else gets off work. I was always looking for the next idea, the next story, the next video.

Reason for final decision

I had no debt, no loans, and no family to rely on, so I was able to quit my job with peace of mind. Luckily, we arrived at the perfect timing as I don’t have any children yet and my dad and the rest of my family are still healthy. I live at home with my parents, so I don’t pay rent or have a mortgage.

The supportive reaction of my parents was also impressive. My father said that if he were in my shoes, he would do the same thing. I had discussed this idea with her mother before she passed away, but she never asked me why. She just asked me where I was traveling.

I quit my job in December 2023, seven years after founding Our Grandfather Story. I am still a member of the board of directors and still own stock in the company.

I’m currently in Singapore, but I bought a one-way ticket to Japan and will be leaving at the end of February.

I have no plans to return to work or take another job anytime soon. For the next year and a half, I will travel to Japan, China, and Central Asia, and truly cherish each day.