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Lital Orlev
Lital Orlev under the Chicago Booth sign

For twenty years, I did the right things.

I started as a software engineer. I earned my MBA at Chicago Booth. Then I led product at large corporations and at startups, owning the vision, the roadmap, the execution and the business impact. Every step made sense on paper, and every step was a good decision.

And at some point, I realized I was executing someone else's plan very well.

So I did what I knew how to do: I treated my own life like a product. I wrote down what I really wanted, listed my riskiest assumptions and started testing them with small, cheap experiments instead of one big leap.

One of those experiments became Avec Edna, a charcuterie and grazing table business built on a passion I had ignored for years. It taught me more about product-market fit than any roadmap review.

Today I help others do the same. Women who want to start over without starting from zero, and businesses of every size that want to test their next bet before they make it.

The Chicago skyline from Lincoln Park
Chicago, where chapter II happened.

Four chapters

  1. I

    Engineer

    Learned to build things that work.

  2. II

    Chicago Booth

    Learned how businesses win.

  3. III

    Product leader

    Owned vision, roadmap and business impact, at large corporations and startups.

  4. IV

    Founder

    Followed the passion. Tested it. Built it.

What I believe about starting over

You're not starting from zero

Everything you've done is an asset. The work is in reframing it, not throwing it away.

Test before you leap

Big decisions get safer when you break them into small, reversible experiments.

Passion is a hypothesis

Following your passion works best when you validate it like any other product idea.