On rookie mistakes, big fat F-ups, credit card debt and finding purpose as a "failed" founder...

My journey from starting a business ➡️ parting with a business ➡️ ironically finding some success in writing all about my mistakes ➡️ to my present day in distressed assets and M&A.

So many new faces here!! Thanks to

Emily Sundberg

for featuring The Corral (full post below) last week. (Update on The Corral at the bottom of this letter for those interested.)

It’s always a little kooky to invite a bunch of strangers in behind the paywall to gaze upon my most intimate and vulnerable memories and mistakes, and for a moment or two I waffled on the best way to pull all you new friends into the fold alongside the amazing readers who have been on this long jaunt through the woods with me for so long.

The truth is, I don’t write about business or founder life 85% of the time— it’s a real salad of a newsletter here, a healthy mix of different ingredients, some tasty in the moment with no lasting sustenance and some hearty brain food that fuel you for days to come.

I lucked out, because my episode on Eleanor Turner (founder/CEO of The Big Favorite, co-founder of Argent) and Isabelle Steichen’s (co-founder of Lupii) podcast dropped yesterday, and it somehow manages to accomplish everything I’d hoped.

New readers, this episode catches you up in an easy, conversational way. Free subscribers, this gives you a glimpse of what I usually go in-depth into behind the paywall. It’s kind of like a free trial! Readers who have been with me since the very beginning, it’s partially my love letter to the sense of freedom and expansiveness your support of my writing has brought me. 🥰

We cover (and this is not even an exhaustive list):

• Why I took the leap to be a founder in the first place

• Rookie mistakes and big fat fuck ups I made (many of which I’ve written about at greater length here, if you want to come back and dive deeper into hiring mistakes, cash flow mistakes, etc)

• Transitioning to a portfolio career from a W2 job… and the hunt to find clients

• My work in “distressed” assets/consumer brands and why a lot of businesses end up on the chopping block— or up for acquisition

• Writing and YOU, my amazing readers!

• Trying to build a career in sustainability in this era of climate denial

• Scarcity complexes, personal debt, and the other lingering effects of being a founder who did not exit for 10x EBITDA and make it on the cover of Forbes…

• How my serial entrepreneur parents (who are co-founders of a tech startup!) affected my perception of start-ups

• Our differing opinions on: Scott Galloway, the Tias and Parsley Healths of the world, whether or not we should be encouraging young people to pursue their passions… or get out there and make money

Deeply appreciative of Eleanor and Isabelle for having me on. They’re two great people! Trying hard not to judge myself for how many times I used the word “vibes”, which is as tempting a filler word for me as “like.” (For inquiring minds, I filmed this in September, which is why I am tan, have a different hair color, and may allude to some work I’m no longer doing!)

It might not be your lunch break, but you get the vibe. Here are some “open browser tabs,” if you will!

• I loved this tour of George Lang’s home in Cairo. I want to see more home tours in the Middle East and North Africa, yes, as a Middle Eastern person— but also because we’ve done the whole ~tour of a wealthy home in a white wealthy country~ thing to death in American media.

• I’m certainly not the first to comment on this, but the amount of White Lotus collabs feels… nuts? And I guess what’s most bizarre to me is that most of the collabs are so incongruous with the essence of The White Lotus, its highbrow lens and even its viewers. A CoffeeMate collab? Abercrombie? Really?? This made me feel icky and think less of the show… they really could have ate if they picked the right brand partners, there was an opportunity to hit it out of the park.

  

• Over the weekend my friends commented on this Loewe inspired candle that I found via

  Grace Atwood
  (I trust her implicitly and, frankly, blindly on all things beauty and candles)— slam dunk. Not only does it look great, the scent and throw is shockingly good for an Amazon candle. I got the Cypress but I can’t wait to try the Oud and Agarwood scent. I like that I can reuse the vessel for pens or makeup brushes and the wax is really easy to pop out— you could even insert a candle refill from my new favorite refill brand, Element Brooklyn.

  

• Sarah Wood González
  hit the nail on the head here. I identify maybe too closely with her writing about the overwhelm of the free work taken on for others— it always puts me in a shitty mood when I can really only blame myself for not really being good at “boundaries”… whatever those are.

  what does resentment teach us?

• J. Crew used to be the apple of my eye, but for a while it felt like they hadn’t dropped any hits… Spring has sprung and with it so many cute new additions to the line-up, like this big raffia and leather shoulder bag— and its tiny counterpart.

Were you interested in my launch of The Corral last week? Read on for a brief update on timing, applications closing, etc.

First of all, wow! This took off much faster than I expected, and with far more interested people— and with broader careers and definitions of entrepreneurship— than I expected. Because of that, applications close tomorrow, 2/26. I’m just one person, and your interest is… A LOT! (Said lovingly.) Application link is below behind the paywall.

Again, wide open to any brand partners who want to reach founders… this is a good group with some incredible work under their belts.

Some more salient updates below for those who have applied! ⤵️