Last May, I did something really hard— I had to let go of my team. All of it. I was running a business that wasn’t growing (at least not in the way a venture capitalist wants it to) and I had hired too much and in the wrong parts of the business. I don’t talk about this often because

First, let me get one thing straight: no one thing led to my decision to close up shop about a year ago. When I started Goldune, I was 26. 26! I …

I knew I had to get a job in October of last year. Simply put, the decision made itself: I needed money, and I had not much left after years of paying my business instead of my business paying me. The decision morphed over time. At first I was open to something maybe part-time while I kept working on my business. Then I thought my business would be a sid…

It’s both simple and complicated all at once: I hired too big and too fast, and then continued to make a series of decisions that were bad for the company but good for those hires because I really didn’t want to deal with painful truths, being disliked, or firing people.

I’ve now woken up twice in the middle of the night, tip toed to my office, and rabidly *unscheduled* a Substack that was set to send early the next morning. Even in my sleep, there’s a niggling subconscious that says “Wait! That letter isn’t good enough to send yet!”

Hi! First off, welcome to a bunch of new readers who found me through my lovely friend Nate. If you’re new here or just get too many newsletters to keep them straight, here’s a brief refresher on who I am and what I write about. Now let’s go :) Only decades ago, the average person had one source of information, if any — the local newspaper. I…

I’ve wanted to write this for so long, but there’s so much to say and it never feels complete. I’ve tip toed around it— talking about founder debt, how we are living through a second Gilded Age, “quiet luxury”— but never hit it right on the nose. As I’m learning with writing, more regularly and more seriously, you sort of have to release the hope of eve…

The other day I wrote about how desperate I was to take a pause from the breakneck speed of jumping from start-up to start-up to start-up for the last 4 years.

Good morning on this very Spring-y Wednesday and Happy May! My boyfriend and I have dubbed this “8,000-step-a-day-May” and our goal is to surpass 8K steps every day this month. This is a very meaty letter, so we’ll keep it short up here with the fluff

This is a very personal, long, meaty letter today— so buckle up, get your beverages ready, settle into a comfortable chair.