How I Went from CEO to Cleaning Toilets

In my previous post, I wrote about how my first bubbles burst—the illusion that everything would be as easy as working alone. I wrote about the shock I experienced when I realized that, as it turns out, working with people requires both hard and soft skills.

While it took me a couple more years—probably until around 2016 or 2017—to consciously internalize these lessons, I can say that there were even more bubbles to burst. How did I end up being the janitor for an entire floor? Why did I start bringing food to work—not because I wanted to eat healthily, but because I couldn’t afford to buy it?

So, here we are in 2015-2016, working from a shared office with designer colleagues. Everything is more than fun—you can’t leave for the restroom without locking your screen (by the way, to this day, I never leave my computer unlocked, whether at home or work). Otherwise, you’d come back to find your mouse taped under the desk, your slippers hanging on the edge of an open window, barely holding on, or your desktop background changed to, let’s say, educational imagery about the natural reproductive processes of animals.

It all seemed great: every morning at six, I’d climb the Kaukas Stairs in Kaunas to our Old Town office, the colleagues were fun, the communication was excellent, and we had clients—or so it seemed.

But was everything really that good?

Unfortunately, no. Being young, I didn’t fully grasp what I had already touched on in my previous post—I thought that if I were making a solid 6,000-7,000 LTL per month on my own, working together would mean we’d make twice as much. It turns out that wasn’t the case. Without getting too much into my previous post’s topic, reality hit me hard when I realized that in my first year, I had to survive on almost the same or just slightly more money—but now with two or even three employees. Let’s not forget office rent. Everything I earned was now divided by three.

And so, like a true leader (as E. Musk, J. Bezos, and others boast), I gave myself a 0.125 full-time equivalent salary—just the minimum wage—to pay my first employee and, later, my second. It was a psychological blow. It felt like I was falling back into my childhood memories and struggles, from which I had just worked so hard to climb out.

Psychologically, it was incredibly tough. I had already started seeing myself as a leader, coming from a comfortable life, having been the best employee, and feeling like I had achieved my American dream and IT guru status. And now, I had to return to financial hardship. I’m exaggerating a little, but I counted my expenses for the month and even the day. I had forgotten about traveling. I tried to control my spending on luxuries. I cooked and brought food to work not because I wanted to eat healthily but because even spending 5 LTL (1-2 EUR now) a day on lunch was too expensive. I was thinking about how to survive on my savings, ensure my employees got paid, and still have at least something left for myself until dividend payouts in the summer.

Sometimes, I feel like I never truly escaped this rat race. Even in our company’s culture, it’s written that the company will always prioritize its employees first, only then itself. This first experience shaped that philosophy. But it shaped more than just that.

To this day, as a real leader, I also cleaned the entire office floor by myself on weekends. The worst part? For several years, I had to clean the disgusting shared bathroom for the whole floor.

As I write this story, I can’t help but smile because it seems that at every step of my career and business, I have made things more complicated for myself than necessary.

For example, on our floor, there was a group of people with disabilities who had psychological disorders. I’m not mocking or saying anything against them, but I must understand what happened in our shared bathroom, which I cleaned weekly. No one outside of post-Soviet countries has seen a sign saying, “Do not step on the toilet.”

Unfortunately, our neighbors were older women with mental health issues who, somehow—either by climbing onto the toilet or simply “missing”—left it in a state that made it utterly unusable. I’m not exaggerating at all.

I couldn’t allow my employees to feel uncomfortable coming to the office, be unable to use the restroom properly, or work in an unclean space. By now, it’s apparent that we couldn’t afford a cleaning service, so I had to take the initiative myself. Every week, on Saturdays or Sundays—or sometimes late at night after work—I became Mr. Cleaner Ričardas, the manager-janitor.

I remember cleaning that restroom and thinking, “Is this why I’m here? Do I need all of this?” But I saw it as Brian Tracy would put it—the price you must pay upfront. I believed, and I knew, that soon I would be the leader of a company with hundreds of employees, making millions.

Today, I no longer resent those architects who rented the office next door and never once lifted a finger to help in those two years. I no longer grudge against our neighboring tenants who refused to share a clean, private restroom key—even when we offered to split the costs. I don’t even resent our office’s landlord, whose only response was sending her daughter to clean the bathroom once or twice—until she saw what was happening and refused to return.

So, imagine me, a freshly minted CEO with two employees, working twelve to fourteen hours daily, including weekends, and cleaning bathrooms.

As a kid, I was sluggish when it came to housework. In school, I was ashamed that my mother worked as a cleaner due to personal struggles. It seemed like a disgraceful job. But as a 24-year-old graduate with the title of CEO, I did the same thing.

This experience taught me the value of hard work, the importance of not being afraid of any job, and always taking responsibility and initiative.

If, back in school, I spent my afternoons writing a blog while programming, then by my final year of university and the start of my master’s, I was doing everything necessary to ensure that my newly founded PrestaRock survived.

This period of my life forged my willpower, determination, and perseverance. And while cleaning those toilets, I promised myself never to give up. I wouldn’t allow it.

Today, when I see flashy LinkedIn posts saying, “Work smart, not hard,” I wonder if things were different back then.

Maybe.

But without this experience, I would have never made that promise to myself—never to give up, no matter what.

Today, I walk my life’s path, repeating that promise to myself despite all the challenges that come my way.