The Cost of Starting Your Own Business talks to founders to get an honest look at what it really takes to create a company. Not just the financial, but the personal and emotional costs, too.

Like many people during the pandemic, writers Anika Jade Levy and Madeline Cash were craving community. The longtime friends had always been drawn to an earlier era—a time when writers were celebrities in their own right, with buzzing social circles built around books and ideas. In October 2020, they decided to create that space themselves, and organized an outdoor reading for emerging writers at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

The turnout was overwhelming—enough to get Levy and Cash barred from hosting future events at the landmark. Although the prospect of future readings there was laid to rest, they left inspired to create something else: Forever Magazine, an independent literary and art publication with a deliberately subversive, feminine point of view.

The pair brought on Nat Ruiz, Levy’s college friend and a full-time art director, and together envisioned the magazine as a way to revive the literary scenes in L.A. and New York. They also wanted to create space for emerging voices who often struggle to get published elsewhere, at a moment when universities were cutting funding for fiction programs and the Trump administration had slashed support for the arts.

What sets Forever Magazine apart is its refusal to separate “serious” literature from cultural spectacle, like the decision to publish prolific poet Eileen Myles and scammer-turned-socialite Anna Delvey in the same issue. For Ruiz, it was “a way that we could say to the world, ‘Only Forever would put these two people, these two artists, in one magazine.’” Five years in, the magazine continues to mix up-and-comers with established voices like Pure Colour author Sheila Heti and The Guest novelist Emma Cline.

While that approach has helped Forever Magazine grow from a 700-copy zine to print runs of more than 2,500 that sell out almost immediately—alongside a growing online audience and regularly sold-out events—the magazine has always been a deliberately passion-led operation. Funded largely out of pocket, Forever Magazine can currently afford to cover printing and shipping costs, but not contributor fees.

Today, it’s primarily a two-person effort: Cash, whose latest book Lost Lambs is out this month, stepped back after moving to London. Ruiz works full-time as an art director, while Levy balances freelance writing, adjunct teaching, and the recent publication of her debut novel Flat Earth. Over Zoom in November, not long after their eighth issue sold out, Levy and Ruiz reflected on five years of Forever Magazine, why the publication is “its own reward,” and what comes next.

Anika Levy: “Early on, Madeline got a piece of advice from Asher Penn, who runs Sex Magazine. He said, ‘In order to create a project that picks up momentum and becomes vital, you need to identify a cultural void and meet a need that's not being addressed.’ There was a need for what we were doing. A lot of the other underground lit magazines were really bro-y, and they also did not privilege aesthetics. Everybody was scared to be subversive or take risks. So, that cultural void was publishing people who were not going to be published anywhere else.”

Nat Ruiz: “We were early to the idea that consumers or readers can smell risk aversion, and being willing to take strong risks makes you immediately recognizable and compelling. We had nothing to lose because we had nothing.

The friendship came first—from me and Anika, Anika and Madeline, and then I became friends with Madeline. It became a project where the business model is friendship. I was totally down to put in time because the year before had been in lockdown. I just needed to do something that meant something with people who were passionate.”

Ruiz: “We all split the printing. Our first issue cost us about $700 to print. The first magazine is so thin because we could only afford to print on that paper quality, but we went all in, no hesitancy. I remember us being like, ‘Are we being too risky?’ and then we were like, ‘Fuck it, let’s do it.’

As demand has grown, printing costs have increased. Our most recent issue was around $3,000 to print, though that number can shift, since we often do reprints when issues sell out quickly. Shipping and fulfillment are additional out-of-pocket costs on top of that, but printing has been the biggest variable expense for us from issue to issue.

Circulation isn’t fixed and has scaled gradually in response to demand, but is also culled by our own ability to keep up with logistics and fulfillment. It’s always a bit nerve-wracking because we send out every order by hand ourselves and store the magazines in our apartments, so a higher print run risks trekking to the post office every day and living among boxes. We’ve been lucky to have a very loyal readership, and to date, every issue has sold out.”

Levy: “The climate was very different five years ago. There was a lot about proving that you had working-class credentials. I think now we've moved to a climate where it's almost cooler to come from money. For myself, my instinct is to hide that I'm white trash and came from dirt because that does not seem as fashionable in New York. But our parents have not funded the magazine. My mom can’t even afford to buy the magazine [$27 with a shipping fee of about $5].

We pay for the printing and shipping ourselves; that’s it. We haven't bought ads or done paid social. In the absence of being able to pay people, what we can do is present their work very beautifully in a way that demands attention and serious engagement. But all of our growth and reach has been organic; it’s word of mouth, people come to an event, or we publish someone, and they share it. The people who are going to dismiss us are going to dismiss us, and there's no point trying to change their minds.”

Levy: “Smallness is something we've protected and nurtured to the extent that I send every single magazine out myself. Early on, when Madeline was doing the fulfillment, they were so frustrated with us at the Chinatown post office that she had to bake cookies for the postal workers. It's not that we are against expansion; it's that we really want to protect our point of view, and we're not going to sign away the keys to the castle.”

Ruiz: “We have talked a lot about what the future of Forever could look like, and we, of course, want it to grow. It would be amazing to actually make money doing it, so we can print more magazines and expand. We’ve had a lot of offers, but the thing we're trying to avoid is if an investor comes on board and they want to have a say in what we're publishing. If we were to ever grow, it would be on our own terms, and that is 100 percent.”

Levy: “We spend hundreds of hours on each issue. In terms of editorial, the work is disseminated throughout a calendar year or a season, where it will be a couple of hours every day. For Nat, it’s always an intense sprint."

Ruiz: “When we're not in the sprint, it's a lot of collecting art—like, if I go to a show and I like something, or even being online. Forever is almost like if we printed our group chat because we’re sharing ideas all day long; one of the best parts of it is how we’re always thinking about it. But when I’m working on the issue, and there are deadlines in the last two or three months, it’s at least 30 hours per week. My weekends go away because I have a day job to be able to sustain life—we all do.”

Ruiz: “I took a hiatus from the magazine for eight months because I have an autoimmune disease, plus work was getting crazy, and I was moving to a new city. I have a pressure that is self-imposed; because this is a personal project, it is the most important thing…When I had to take a hiatus, it was when I felt my own pressure of, I don’t have the energy to put into the project. It was the right thing to do, and when I came back, I healed from that.

But there are many prices to pay. We’ve had arguments, and it’s painful when you have to fight with your best friends over a project that is meant to be because you’re good friends. But luckily, the friendship has always been number one, so we’ve always been able to resolve things.”

Levy: “Another thing that's been difficult is that I’m pretty ruthless editorially, and so much of both the indie and institutional literary scene runs on nepotism and favors. I have never once been willing to publish or accept work that I don't like because the only reason we're doing this is to create something beautiful. That means a lot of the time, not only rejecting friends' work, but often not even getting around to being able to read it. We get thousands and thousands of submissions. I wish I could read them, but again, we're doing this all for free. Socially, there's a cost to not being willing to publish your friends.”

Ruiz: “Our biggest challenges are definitely the success itself and logistics. We were not expecting to sell out the last issue in a week, for example. That means Annika has to ship all of them quickly, and it takes up so much time. How can you professionalize something that was built on friendship and not kill the magic? It's hard.”

Levy: “The reason that it continues to be compelling and shiny to people is our refusal to professionalize or our inability to professionalize. But the organizational aspects of executing every level of layout, print, and distribution ourselves are really hard. We've maybe made that needlessly difficult because we could raise our prices, we could pay for distribution…but it wouldn't be as special. It wouldn't have my handwriting on it. It wouldn't come in holographic bubble paper covered in Lisa Frank stickers. We'd be sacrificing a lot.”

Ruiz: “We’re already on the mood board: People are stealing the writers we’re publishing, the artists we’re publishing, even performers that come to our events blow up. It would be amazing if we got more credibility, but we’re not going to do it by stopping being who we are.”

Levy: “Seeing the meteoric rise of the artists and writers we’ve broken has also been such a privilege, and really creating physical spaces to celebrate that. It really does feel like we've addressed a cultural void.

The Cost of Starting Your Own Business talks to founders to get an honest look at what it really takes to create a company. Not just the financial, but the personal and emotional costs, too.

Danielle A. Scruggs didn't expect that Ava DuVernay's debut film I Will Follow would change her life. But seeing a movie created by, and starring, a Black woman was enough to inspire her to start Black Women Directors—a digital library where she cataloged movies by Black female and nonbinary filmmakers, while advocating for the further hiring of diverse filmmakers.

"I started Black Women Directors because I wanted to learn more for myself," says Scruggs, 40, who primarily works as a photojournalist and photo editor in Chicago. "What I realized as it gained a lot of traction is that this isn’t just something I’m interested in; a lot of other people want this information, too.”

Information that Scruggs hopes doesn't just educate—but leads to real change. According to a USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative study only 5.3 percent of 2024’s top-grossing movies were made by women of color. “There’s really great work being done by Black women, and they deserve a fair shake at equity,” Scruggs says. “I hope that Hollywood also sees that they don’t have to hire the same people over and over again. There are so many people to choose from, and you’re not gonna get a monolithic point of view if you hire someone featured in this archive.”

Since its launch in 2015, Black Women Directors has continued to expand its footprint. Scruggs collaborated with Black Film Club Chicago last August to launch the Chicago Film Symposium, which is in the planning stages to return later this year. She’s also begun to pick up more accolades, like two 2025 Webby Awards and an upcoming fellowship with Archiving The Black Web. Filmmakers from Justin Simien to Radha Blank—and even DuVernay herself—have even shown their support for the site.

On a video call in April, we talked with Scruggs about how she transformed her educational Tumblr into an expansive platform, where she sees the future of Black Women Directors going, and the shoutout that shocked her.

Seeing the I Will Follow posters was a moment that stuck with me. In 2015, I realized, I want to have all these things I’m seeing in one place, so let me start a Tumblr like everyone else. It went through a couple different cycles. Eventually, I moved it to Squarespace. I worked with a developer and designer to do a redesign of it two years ago to make it more search-friendly, easier to use, and more aesthetically pleasing.

When I started the site, I would get a lot of messages and emails from people saying, “That’s so great that you featured this person. Make sure you check out this other person.” I looked at a lot of different sources to figure out who to feature, putting my journalism skills to use.

Hosting a site on Squarespace is $196 for the whole year. I decided to start doing it by year, more so for psychological purposes, and not seeing a monthly amount leave my bank account. It’s $40 for the domain name. I used to pay $30 a month for Mailchimp, but I moved to Substack because it’s free, and I felt like I could have a bigger reach. I also paid for movie streaming services like Netflix, Criterion Channel, HBO, and costs related to movie screenings.

I have donations set up, but to be fully transparent, I don’t get a ton of donations. I’m selling a zine and also have an option for people to subscribe to my Substack, but it’s available for free. All donations and proceeds go towards hosting the site, but I don’t have a major funder or sponsor.

Launching the Chicago Film Symposium last year, we were incredibly lucky because we reached out to Sisters in Cinema, and they had grant funding that covered the venue and AV equipment. So between Black Women Directors and Black Film Club, we only paid for catering, an event photographer, and marketing materials. Right now, we’re finding sponsors for the next iteration by reaching out to local and national businesses. Financially, it’s a bit of a challenge because none of us is independently wealthy, and we don’t have a grant sponsor yet.

Black Women Directors is a one-woman labor of love, and the biggest hurdle is time. I don’t work on this full time. My day job photo editing is pretty demanding in and of itself, so being able to make time and making sure I have the emotional capacity after work is a big thing.

I update the site, publish a monthly newsletter on Substack, and sell a zine. It takes me about 10 hours every week. The actual writing of everything takes about two hours, but there are other hours of doing the research, culling through different screening announcements, watching movies, and processing what you’ve seen. Eventually, I would like to hire someone to work with me on adding directors to the site and then featuring guest writers in the newsletter.

Last year, planning the Symposium was really challenging because I was working at The Wall Street Journal. We had our Symposium right before the DNC, which I was covering because it was in Chicago. I’m still honestly not sure how I was able to work on my day job and then work on creating that event at the same time. I never got to the point where I didn’t want to do this anymore, but there were definitely times where I felt like, Did I bite off more than I can chew? I had to remind myself, You're only one person. You also have two other people [via Black Film Club Chicago] you can lean on. You don't have to try to do everything yourself.

For the most part, people have been supportive and excited to see that there's a platform like this, but sometimes people will email me negative things. I got one last month accusing me of reverse racism. The email said, “Why do you have a site that's just about Black women directors? It should be about all women directors or it should just be about all directors.” Someone else wrote to me about the fact that I included trans women. It didn't even occur to me that that would be an issue for someone; it's called Black Women Directors. I'm hoping that because there's been more education around gender identity issues, that's not going to continue to be an issue.

I was featured in The Cut, which was surprising because I didn’t know anyone there knew about me. They had a feature about how to find out about Black women filmmakers, and they listed me along with Maya Cade’s Black Film Archive. I was like, Whoa, that’s pretty cool. I’m in very good company.

When I first started the site, I got a shout-out from the British Film Institute on Twitter. I was like, How did they even know about me? I took a screenshot to remember that people are paying attention to the work.

This is a lot of fun for me. I love doing research. I love doing deep dives. I love watching films and learning more about different filmmakers who are out there. It inspires me as well. Through Black Women Directors, I've connected with a lot of different people locally, nationally, even internationally. It's been a very humbling experience to realize that something that I started purely for my own selfish purposes of wanting to learn more about Black women in film has turned into a bigger platform.

The Cost of Starting Your Own Business talks to founders to get an honest look at what it really takes to create a company. Not just the financial, but the personal and emotional costs, too.

You can use many epithets to describe Ella Emhoff. She's the stepdaughter of Vice President Kamala Harris—and come November, potentially the first daughter to POTUS. She's a fashion model, with Balenciaga and Miu Miu on her runway resume. And the internet has crowned the 25-year-old a certified It girl. Emhoff substantiates the latter title on a video call with Marie Claire, tuning in wearing a perfectly worn-in white tank top and a kitschy-cool beanie she made herself.

But going forward, Emhoff would like you to lead with this: artist, designer, and founder of the knitwear brand and crafting club Soft Hands. "No matter what, I'm always going to be connected to my family and modeling—it's a part of my history. But it feels really good to execute an idea I've had for a while and have it exist as its own thing," Emhoff says from her apartment-cum-studio in Brooklyn, New York.

She jokes that her entrepreneurial endeavor is a coming-of-age trope—"It's the classic, 'I'm 25. My frontal lobe is forming, so I'm doing my own thing now.'"—but she's earnest about how meaningful it is to pursue her passion for fiber arts. "It feels like I'm setting up for a more true-to-myself path. It's very liberating."

Emhoff remembers the first time she picked up a set of knitting needles with impressive recall: "My mom taught me how to knit at a Disneyland hotel when I was six years old with some kit from Target." She explains that "young Ella was a very crafty kid who just couldn't sit still," and knitting was a tool to tame her hyperactivity and force her to focus on the task at hand. The hobby stuck: Emhoff continued knitting as an anti-anxiety and de-stressing outlet throughout her childhood and later honed her practice at Parsons School of Design by studying fine arts and textiles.

She launched her knitwear collective Soft Hands in 2021 and has stayed busy ever since. The artist staged her New York Fashion Week debut in February 2023 with "Ella Emoff Likes to Knit," a pop-up presentation of mohair maxi gowns, chunky balaclavas, and sweater vests. She exhibited her knit "paintings" of Gucci hair barrettes and Sandy Liang Mary Janes at Gotham, a woman-owned art gallery-slash-weed dispensary in Manhattan this past spring.

Emhoff has also been selling out cozy wine bars for her Knit Club, where she teaches beginners the basics and cultivates a "third place" for people to gather. "A big part of my ability and inspiration to make knitwear is through community," she says. "So many formative moments [as an artist] come from the people you meet and the work you create in group settings. A lot of people coming to the [knit] clubs want that sense of place."

Emhoff is still that creative, can't-sit-still kid at her core, piling as many activities onto her plate as possible. "I can't stop doing and making things. My poor dog is always biting my ankles, like, 'Sit down, please. Stop putzing.' But I can't help it—it's my brain. I'm like a rabbit," she says. It makes sense: when you finally prioritize your passion and allow it to bloom, you can't trim or tamper with its natural growth. "There's so much more fun stuff coming with [Soft Hands] in the next year," she says with an ear-to-ear smile. "All I have to say is: get pumped."

Ahead, Emhoff speaks about using one career to fund another, getting a serendipitous endorsement from an A-lister, and taking care of her knitting-induced tendinitis.

I made a pair of striped pants for a final project in my machine knitting course at Parsons and posted them [online]. People were interested in them, so I started my business by selling those striped pants. For basically all of the pandemic, while I was quarantining in Los Angeles, I worked 10 straight hours a day making pants and, boy, was it hard. I was very naive back then about what it took to take a business from, 'Oh, I'm in college and selling pants’ to ‘Oh, now I'm out of college, and I'm trying to build an actual brand.’

[Modeling] was not my plan. I sort of fell into it. [Emhoff was signed to IMG Models after going viral for wearing a crystal-embellished, checkered Miu Miu coat to President Biden’s 2021 inauguration.] As I started getting more modeling work, I saw it as a job I could use to push my knitwear forward financially.

I didn’t want to get loans for my business because I didn't know if I was in it enough. I was still figuring out if I could actually make my art into something—if my knitwear was something that I wanted to put all my time and effort into. I met with wholesalers, but the product minimums were very high, and since I was doing all my own production, that quickly became impossible. So, I kept modeling because it was a good stream to keep pushing through with the brand. If I hadn't had that money coming in, I wouldn't have moved forward like I did [with Soft Hands].

I am a baseline highly anxious and sensitive person. I'm also a one-woman show, and it’s very stressful when you're trying to build a scalable brand by yourself with your own funding and you don't have anyone to riff off of. You have to be really strong to handle the feelings that come up when you spend so much time on a product and list it for what you feel it's worth, and it doesn't sell. Or, the opposite: I spend so much time working on my pieces—some of them take 50 hours to make—and knitting is such a therapeutic and intense process. My apartment is my studio, so I’m surrounded by all of my pieces all the time, and they're such a comfort [to me]. But then I sell them, and they become a part of someone else's story.

Having your likeness attached to your work also takes its toll. [Modeling] is not for the faint of heart. It's just so intense—it makes you the way you make money. It's hard on the self, and I couldn't handle it. [Modeling] was not a world that I could comfortably work in. I couldn't remove myself from my knitwear work and be the faceless person behind [Soft Hands] because my modeling was always connected to the brand. Now that I'm stepping out of the fashion space and not modeling as much, there's less pressure. I can now be more behind the scenes [with Soft Hands], and it's already feeling a lot better.

I developed tendonitis in my wrist because I was knitting so much. A classic visual is me at my knitting machine wearing two wrist braces.

I'm excited to lean into more gallery work because it lends itself to you doing your thing, letting it sit in the exhibit, and then you can make the other thing. It brings more baby steps. And my wrists need the baby steps.

Last night, I went to a dinner event and was seated next to Katie Holmes. She was so lovely and asked me a lot about knitting. I told her about [Soft Hands Knit Club] and how I take yarn donations from people, specifically from a lot of older women's yarn stashes. She was like, “Oh, my mom knits! I'm going to get in contact with you, and I'll send [her yarn] over so you can add it to your pile.” It was surreal. Katie Holmes was not on my bingo card of people to send me yarn.

At the beginning of Soft Hands, I had a lot of meetings with brand designers. They told me there are two parts to having a brand. There's creating the look, the product, and the brand ethos—its identity, story, and character. Then, there's the other part, the business side—the emailing, managing, and hiring of new people. As the brand owner, you have to decide: Are you going to stay on the creative side, or will you be the owner and relinquish [the creating] to someone else and be on the business side?

That really stuck with me because when I started [Soft Hands], I was doing a lot of the admin work when I wanted to do the actual making of the product. [Those conversations] made me restructure what my brand is. I realized I could bring all the different facets of my knitwear journey, my art, and my business into one creative endeavor. Now, [Slow Hands] is less of a knitwear clothing brand and more of a creative studio that does knitwear, gallery art, and graphic design. It feels nice to take a step back and think less about the short-term goals and more about how I want to see this knitting thing grow in the long term. What steps can I take to see the bigger picture rather than, 'Oh, I need to make a collection, figure out wholesale, and get on X, Y, Z retailer site.'

I never thought that I wanted to do knitwear professionally—it was something I just wanted to do for myself. It’s been tough to balance [knitting] being what I love to do with it now being what I do for work. I try to treat the projects as a hobby and not think about it so much as I'm monetizing my craft. To think of it more as, ‘I'm making these pieces, I'm doing these clubs, I'm doing all of this stuff, and it just happens to be my job.’ If I think of it the other way, it takes the fun out of an already repetitive, long, and physically strenuous task.

There was a point when it had gone too far in the work direction, and I wasn't making stuff that I liked or that felt true to what I wanted to do. It felt like I was working all the time and putting myself and a lot of resources into something that I didn't even want to do. Now, it’s more of my craft and career morphing together as a positive thing because I know I'm really lucky to do what I love every day as a job and to experiment and be goofy with it.

The day I released my first collection online was a little dramatic and tear-filled. [The collection] didn't sell as well as I thought it would, and the thought of releasing my knitwear to people I didn't know sent me into a spiral. I didn't know why they were buying it, and I thought, 'I just did all of that for what? Now, it's out there. I'm never going to see it again. I don't know where it's going or if my knitwear will gain momentum.' I just felt really sad. I was really in my head and wasn't sure I wanted to keep going with [Soft Hands]. That was when I was going to throw in the towel. But I didn't.

When I did my “Ella Emhoff Likes to Knit” presentation at Spring Studios last year. My friends, peers, and a lot of creatives were looking at art that I'd never shown in person before. That moment was really special to me.

My work—whether it's the knitwear, gallery work, or the knitting club—is inherently very fun. It's colorful. It brings out positive emotions, and it was so cool to see people react to that. I was looking around at everyone and felt so lucky to be in this industry and to have these people there. Through all the stress and everything—I mean, I walked the [Collina Strada Fall 2023] runway show the night before and then stayed up until 4:00 AM finishing everything for the presentation—it felt so special. That's when I knew that I don't like the making a lot of clothing aspect of knitting. I love the seeing people be happy about things I make aspect. That is so much more gratifying and fulfilling to me than selling a thousand units.

The Cost of Starting Your Own Business talks to founders to get an honest look at what it really takes to create a company. Not just the financial, but the personal and emotional costs, too.

For over a decade, Lin Tyrpien sought to identify her professional North Star. From creative roles at Ralph Lauren and Christie's to managing a guesthouse in Bali and learning to weld in Arizona, nothing quite fit—until she was recruited to New York's Chase Contemporary gallery in February 2023. As it turned out, running a gallery was Tyrpien's calling. "I had been searching for that 'aha' moment for 16 years," she says.

Exhilarated by the realization, Tyrpien decided to pursue a space of her own. In May 2024, she and her wife Magdalena opened Lyle Gallery, a name they came up with after two glasses of wine as they prepared to launch. Eclectic, wide-ranging, and wholly original, the Chinatown gallery seeks to spotlight the artists and businesses often boxed out of the mainstream art world. "We have zero interest in hearing from the same privileged groups that have dominated the arts scene for years," Tyrpien says. "At the end of the day, we want this to be an inclusive and beloved space."

Like their artists, the Tyrpiens come from nontraditional backgrounds for New York City's art scene. Both grew up working-class, Lin in rural Pennsylvania and Magdalena in Poland. They bootstrapped Lyle using their own funds, divvying up the nuts and bolts of gallery ownership: Magdalena handles budgets, project management, and contracts, while Lin oversees their artists, marketing, and exhibitions.

In the run-up to their debut show, which features artists' metal works—more on that in a moment—Lin emailed with Marie Claire about their leap into the gallery business.

I started thinking about this about a year ago, just a few months into working at a gallery in SoHo. Once I was in that world, I discovered that, yes, OK, I found the thing I want to do, so now I am going to learn as much as I can and open my own version of this. At first we were just going to do pop-up exhibitions; it seemed like an easier barrier to entry. Then something shifted, and almost unsaid, we started looking at permanent space options.

I went wide on locations, looking at spaces in Chelsea, Flatiron, Tribeca, SoHo, LES, Chinatown, Greenwich Village, even Midtown. I decided on the current location in Chinatown because it lends itself to experimentation, trying new things, failing, playing, and really discovering what Lyle Gallery is and who I am as a gallery owner. Traditional gallery hubs like Tribeca and Chelsea just felt too serious for me right now.

The inaugural show, which I started working on probably six months ago, opened in mid-May for NYCxDesign Week. It's a group show featuring works by artists working in metal (Jøna Maaryn out of Marfa Texas, Jamps Studio out of London, and “the city’s chainsmith," Johnny Valentine. out of NYC). Once I had my first artist on board, it really took shape from there and became real.

Magdalena worked really hard the last three years to facilitate a sale of the company she was working for. In doing that, we were able to put a small amount of money aside to get this up and running. I think it would have been unrealistic to try to do this without that sale happening first. Magdalena and I both come from working-class families, rather atypical to the backgrounds in which you typically see people opening galleries in this city. Magdalena immigrated from Poland as a child and I grew up in rural Pennsylvania. Odds were definitely stacked against us in that sense, but we’ve worked very hard in our professional careers to get to where we are now.

It’s a known fact that a lot of professionals in the art world come from a certain upbringing. But we’re proof that it doesn’t have to be the case, but it certainly doesn’t come without many obstacles and roadblocks. It’s been important to keep overheads like rent low. Right now, the salary from my part-time job covers the rent, which puts us in a good place. But we are definitely starting small and not jumping into a fancy space in a fancy neighborhood, and I am very happy with that.

Deadlines hit differently when it’s for your own company. It’s hard to justify a weekend or evening to relax and recharge when there is so much to get done. We’ve had to evaluate what in our life is propelling us forward and what is holding us back, and that can mean saying no more often. We have definitely outgrown our small one-bedroom apartment, but we made the decision to prioritize starting a business.

We were really scrappy about finding a location, contacting listings on Craigslist and Facebook, and walking around neighborhoods looking for “for rent by owner” signs and calling them up.

We ultimately found the space on Craigslist, which is just so fitting for who we are as people and as a couple. Aside from having good bones for a gallery space, we are most excited about this little secret room in the back in which we are scheming up an interesting use for the space that I can’t share yet.

Imposter syndrome (of course). Being OK with having uncomfortable conversations (I hate conflict). Learning to make quick decisions (I like to explore every option).

When I received the keys to the space, it was dark, cold, and pouring rain. I sat on the floor with the lights off, listening to the raindrops hitting the metal awning and watching the light come in from the street. I had imagined that moment for so long. I moved to NYC when I was 18 to attend design school at FIT and remember dreaming of that “one day” moment of having my own creative space. If I had planned ahead to bring a blanket and pillow, I definitely would have slept on the floor that night.

Visiting artists in their studios and having artists tell us that they are excited to work with us. Working towards something that is bigger than us, like bringing more voices from underrepresented communities and backgrounds to the front. The hidden lesbian poker room that we are building in the back of the gallery (I’ve said too much!).

“BE PUNK!” —Ella Fitch

“Walk into every room with the confidence of a mediocre white guy” —Magdalena Typrien

The Cost of Starting Your Own Business talks to founders to get an honest look at what it really takes to create a company. Not just the financial, but the personal and emotional costs, too.

Best-selling author and longtime Florida resident Lauren Groff couldn’t sit by idly as book bans became increasingly commonplace in her state over the past two years. So she and her husband, Clay Kallman, decided to open a bookshop in Gainesville to create a haven for all readers and uplift frequently challenged works. Named after the Florida native big cat, The Lynx, their slogan puts it best: “Watch Us Bite Back.”

Owning a bookstore had long been a dream for the couple, but when Governor Ron DeSantis passed legislation in 2022 that made it easier for individual books to be contested in public schools, they knew they needed to open up shop. Two years later, after renovating an old hair salon in downtown Gainesville into a store—fit with an event space, cafe, and children’s reading nook—The Lynx finally welcomed guests through its doors in late April.

The Lynx highlights historically banned books, as well as LGBTQ+ and BIPOC authors, whose work have largely become the focus of scrutiny in Florida—which has seen the highest number of book-banning cases in the past two years. Groff, who is a three-time National Book Award finalist, helped curate the store’s collection of 7,000 titles and hopes to turn the space into an integral part of the community with inclusive programming.

In the days before the store's opening, Groff emailed with Marie Claire about what this chapter of her life as a business owner has been like.

My husband Clay Kallman and I have dreamed about opening a bookstore in Gainesville since we first moved here in 2006. Clay is originally from Gainesville, and his family opened a bookstore called The Florida Bookstore in the 1930s, which they sold in the late '90s. Clay was raised in bookselling: his first job was teaching the point-of-sale system to new employees.

That said, our dream wouldn't have come to much had the state not started cracking down on freedom of expression, and had groups like (the oxymoronically named) Moms for Liberty not pressed forward on their campaign to ban books all over the state. We saw this happening and felt so deeply for the people whose voices and identities were being squelched by a loud and intolerant minority. We dreamed of a general-interest store that would have a special emphasis on banned books; that would celebrate and promote books by LGBTQI+ writers and writers of color; that would fill in the blanks that the Florida educational system is intentionally leaving in our students' education. We decided to meet the authoritarians on their own playground: private business.

The purpose of this store is to act as a lighthouse. To radiate warmth and brightness out to the people who feel as though the state of Florida is currently invalidating their lives and their history. To let them know that there are people here who love and accept them, who want for them to live happily as they are, and who will be fighting for them into the future.

We want to resist the simple story that has been told of what Florida is, to make the story more complex and interesting, to show how book bans are, in fact, deeply unpopular with nearly everyone in the state, and that, through book banning, only a tiny minority of people are trying to impose their political beliefs on the vast majority of Floridians.

We will be engaging in programming to encourage the dissemination of ideas that may be uncomfortable to those who are in power. We will encourage reading widely and well and make literature accessible to populations for whom books may currently be a luxury. We want this store to be a source of pride for Gainesville and for Florida, and for it to become a national beacon. If booksellers are the next in line to be attacked by the state government, we are prepared for this eventuality and have a very large microphone. A group of Lynxes is a watch; we want the bad actors to know that we're watching.

The majority of the startup money has come from the books I have written (thank you to everyone who has ever bought one!). We did want to invite all who wanted to be a part of the store to help us out with the Indiegogo, for which my beautiful writer friends have donated so much: from superstar agent Bill Clegg donating two manuscript critiques to people like Hernan Diaz, Kaveh Akbar, and Cheryl Strayed giving Zooms to book clubs. The public responded with great gusto. We made 116 percent of our goal! And will be fulfilling the perks and blessing the generosity of people from all over the world for a few months to come, as well.

Nothing is really a sacrifice if it's done out of love, I think. I haven't read nearly as many books since November as I normally would have—from this, it's apparent that I have so little time at the moment, and when I do have time to wind down, I usually just fall asleep! But beauty can be found in these things. My children are stepping up and taking responsibility for themselves admirably. Maybe taking a break from reading is all right at the moment, because I'll be reading between 400 and 600 books in the next six months in my role as judge for this year's National Book Awards. Everything can be an opportunity if you look at it from a different perspective.

It's extraordinarily difficult to learn a brand new set of skills in one's mid-40s, and I have never started up a business, done all of the necessary paperwork, hired people, managed the money, figured out point-of-sale systems, or dealt with contractors before. It's all hard! I haven't been able to see some of my favorite people in months, because I'm working such long hours trying to get this airship off the ground.

When I emailed Ann Patchett to tell her I was starting up a bookstore, and she emailed back, "You fool. I'm so proud of you."

Everything is worth it. I am so moved every day to see the goodwill that people are extending in our direction, as well as the hard work of our contractors and landlord and our two spectacular managers. Jackie and Gina are among the best people on the planet, and it's a joy to get to spend time with them. I also discovered how deep and powerful the love of books is in my adoptive hometown, and how hungry people have been for a more diverse slate of literary events. Also, to be honest, there are things that I have pretended to not be able to do in my home life because my husband both likes doing them, and because I wanted to protect my time and didn't want to be yoked into doing them (taxes, insurance, general household operations), and it's a little bittersweet to watch my husband begin to understand that I'm pretty competent in these things, actually.

A friend of mine owns a local bakery, Vine, and she told me not to sweat the delays that are inevitable when building out a store. "In five years, you won't even remember the date you opened," she said. She helped me see reason when I was being unreasonably strict about our timeline.

The Cost of Starting Your Own Business talks to founders to get an honest look at what it really takes to create a company. Not just the financial, but the personal and emotional costs, too.

When Deepica Mutyala joins Marie Claire to discuss the early days of her beauty brand, Live Tinted, she's experiencing the simultaneous high highs and low lows other entrepreneurs know all too well. Mutyala had just met Beyoncé (an all-time high) in person—and was also reeling from filling out a police report after her car was burglarized (an anxiety-inducing low).

"One day, you have a car break-in; the next day, you're in a room, shaking hands with Beyoncé, telling her about your beauty company, and she's telling you she wants all of us to win," she says. "These things happen as an entrepreneur, and it takes a certain kind of human to be able to handle it. But honestly, I feel like I was built for it, and it keeps life interesting."

Based on Mutyala's track record over the last five years, she certainly is built for the business. She became a household name since 2015, when she went viral for her makeup and skincare tips on her YouTube channel. Now, she's best known for her beauty brand, Live Tinted, and its inclusive, effective products made with people of color in mind. Her SPF has even gained a cult following—but Mutyala says the project was nearly scrapped.

Advisors told the founder creating a mineral SPF without a white cast—or even sunscreen in general—was a risky move for an early-stage business. "They said, 'It's going to take a lot of time. It's very expensive. Don't do it,'" Mutyala recalls. "But I didn't listen—and we've won several beauty awards because of it."

"More importantly," she continues, "we've connected with an audience, and it's become our bestseller because I created something that again made people feel seen."

That tenacity, dedication, and commitment to making people of color feel represented has taken Mutyala to heights some entrepreneurs only dream about. Still, she wants to make it clear that she has rough days, too. So do her heroes.

"For instance, I met Beyoncé yesterday. To me, I'm like, 'Oh my God, you icon.' But I'm sure she has her own versions of [self-doubt], the same way that maybe somebody's looking at me, thinking the same thing," she says. "Life is a journey and we have to find ways along the journey to find happiness and pockets of joy that keep us going."

Ahead, Mutyala opens up more about her entrepreneurial journey, including real talk about funding, self-doubt, and the physical and psychological costs of starting her brand.

Step one, and the most important to say out loud, is funding. Receiving funding was really hard. Two percent of women get venture funding, 0.1 percent are women of color, and I experienced that in real time. I witnessed that with my own eyes. The hardest thing I had to go through when starting this company was that. There are two reasons it's hard: It's hard because you're actually just trying to start this business, and you can't function and create the company without the funding. And on the other side, it's an emotional journey because people are telling you no all the time.

You start to doubt yourself in ways that you actually never did [before]. Luckily for me, I have a delusional level of self-belief that it got me through it. 'Delulu' was the word, because when I think back, I think of the amount of people who were just like, 'Oh, cute, you have a viral YouTube video and you think you can start a business off of it.' It's like, no, this was not a cute viral YouTube video with me being like, 'Oh, let me just try this out.' This was a sixteen-year-old girl who never saw herself represented in the beauty industry who promised herself she was going to do something to change it. And everything that I've done is to that end.

I had this mindset of, 'If you're going to say no, let's go to the next person.' I just kept going and going. And now I'm proud that I'm a part of that stat of the two percent of women who's raised funding. I think the amount of women who've raised over 10 million dollars in funding is even lower than that, and that's what I've been able to do.

There were so many challenges, the emotional journey, the feeling that I have to make my parents proud as an immigrant daughter. Being first generation, you have all these things on your shoulders that you just want to prove to yourself, but also to your family to show that you can do something that hasn't been done before.

At launch, we had raised a round of funding via friends and family angel checks, and it was a very small amount of money. My thought process was, How can I get people that I have built within my network throughout my career, who believe in me, to put in a check? I wanted more than just funding from them—I wanted their knowledge. How could I learn from them? Because so many of them were entrepreneurs, and I wanted them to then feel like they were going to benefit from my growth and feel more invested in my growth.

They were also the only people who would give it to me at the time. You have to go to the people who believe in you. So I'm very proud, and I really attribute so much of my success to the network I had built over my entire career. I went to these people who I had just gone to for advice and said, 'I'm building a company. I want you to be behind it with me, and I want to build this together. I'm so grateful for the knowledge you have given me over the years, and I want you to reap the benefits when my business scales and grows and makes you money.' I tried to position it as an opportunity for them.

The one that really stands out to me is actually pre-me starting the company. It was when I was interning at L'Oréal. They didn't give me the full-time offer because they said I wasn't a strong enough marketer. It shattered me. I was like, What? The plan was: I was going to intern in a year, and then I was going to move to New York after college, be a brand manager for the biggest beauty brand, go to Harvard Business School, make my parents proud, and then start my own company. So I had to quickly pivot the whole plan and my brain.

Again, it was still this delusional level of being like, Well, it's still going to happen, but how is it going to happen? But it is very ironic because, since then, I have worked with L'Oréal as an influencer. I've been in a L'Oréal commercial. I've spoken to the head of the L'Oréal investment team about them potentially investing in us. And who knows? Maybe one day they'll buy us. I just think it's just that the definition of rejection is redirection. You have to have your pity party at that moment, but then get up and recognize that it's one person's opinion and they don't know you. You know you. Again, it goes back to this self-belief: I was like, 'I'm going to do this. It's happening. Get on board or don't. But it's happening.'

I didn't really have a personal life. I am trying to figure out what it's like to be a woman in her 30s dating, because I didn't do it while I was building this company. I don't really know how to exert myself. I'm telling myself I'm in my 'soft girl era,' because I don't even know how to exert the feminine parts of myself. Going on dates—the whole thing is a whole new learning curve, because I didn't develop those skills in my 20s the way a lot of people do in their 20s. So I do think that everything does come a little bit out of sacrifice, but I also do really believe in chapters of life. When it comes to the whole 'you-can't have-it-all thing,' I don't believe you can have it all at once, but you can in different chapters and phases of your life.

I'm now at the stage in the business where I can hire the best talent possible and have them help run the business day to day. I can try to remove myself from the weeds a little bit and be more high-level and focused on strategy and hopefully be able to sleep a little bit better at night and have a personal life, because I just don't have one. But I don't have any regrets about it either. The other thing is that, for me, I don't think that I could be where I am in my career professionally if I had prioritized other things in my life simultaneously.

Right now, launching in a retailer and going to Ulta Beauty has been a game changer for our business. They are incredible partners and they're committed partners, and I've always dreamt of people walking into the biggest retailers in the world and seeing faces that look like yours, mine, and a whole spectrum right when you walk in [the store]. That way, when a little girl walks in, she's like, 'Oh my God, that girl looks like me.' That is my motivation. That is what gets me going. That literally fuels my fire even on the hardest days. I feel Ulta's commitment to what Live Tinted stands for by them putting us in the front of the store. It's a game-changer because of the 40 million beauty enthusiasts that they have as their customers.

Then hiring in a president who really knows how to work with that Ulta team has changed my life personally. Finding the person you feel comfortable delegating to is 90 percent of the journey, and you make mistakes along the way, but I finally feel like I can breathe, or at least like I have somebody to share the breath with.

I don't think it's a day versus an hour of a day every day. Moments happen in a day that are high highs and low lows. I am craving just a steady, still state of happiness. I met with Carol Hamilton, this genius icon from L'Oréal who leads M&A, and she spoke about how the first five years [of starting a business] are just a bunch of figuring things out. Then the next five to seven are the hyper growth years. That's where I feel like we are, in that fifth year. The next two years are going to be critical for the business. I'm craving us getting to a place of steady happiness and joy.

I went through a journey when I turned 30, where I thought I should I freeze my eggs, because I just did not see a near future of having kids. I do want to have them one day, but I also didn't want the pressure of having to do it just because of the biological clock everybody talks about. Maybe when we have this conversation in 10 years, I'll tell you, 'Man, that girl was full of shit. She was saying a bunch of things, but she didn't mean it.' But I have to say, at least right now, where I am in my life, I feel like I just handle things with just solutions. Like, I turned 30, I'm not having kids anytime soon, so I froze my eggs. I am not going on dates, so I thought, 'Okay, should I hire a matchmaker? Should I hire a president for my company so I have more time for a matchmaker?' Instead of reacting emotionally to all these things, I've built this sort of armor that is really more focused on problem-solution rather than leading with emotion.

I say that, but at the same time, when it comes to everything relating to my company as a founder, I take it so deeply personally and I do get emotional, and I think I've doubted myself a lot. There have several times in the past that I've doubted myself to be the CEO of the company, because I've wondered: Am I too emotional for this? But I've now come to the conclusion that my empathy is my superpower, and it's what makes people want to be here beyond just it being their job. I feel like people come in and feel like they're making an impact in the industry and that they're working for somebody who cares. But I don't think I also have it all figured out at all, to be very honest.

When there was a Barbie made after me, that was just such a proud moment for me. It was the first ever South Asian CEO Barbie doll. There's been South Asian Barbie dolls before, but they've been in traditional wear, which is also really, really cool, by the way. So awesome that exists. But to see just a South Asian woman in a power suit and wearing her Indian jewelry and things like that, I was really proud of myself. I identify as Indian American. I'm Indian, but I was born and raised here. I'm American, and I think I'm proud, and I want to normalize that Indian girls see themselves in positions of power.

Not every company needs to be built based on a strong purpose. To be honest, I used to look at companies and be like, 'I don't want to shop this brand, because it doesn't have something I believe in.' It's not that I don't feel that way now, but I now recognize as an entrepreneur and from a business perspective that it doesn't have to be everyone's journey. But I'm proud that it is my journey, because on the hardest days, I can walk down the street or go into an Ulta door or open my DMs, and consistently I hear, 'Thank you.' It's just, 'Wow I love your products,' but it's deeper to the people who buy our products. It's not just a product. It's a vehicle for them to see themselves and feel represented in an industry that's neglected them their whole lives. So I feel like I'm lucky that I get to be the person that makes them feel seen. I'm proud that the majority of people who know us, know us for that. It gets me through the hardest days because at these meet and greets, there are girls crying, shaking, saying thank you.

There's a girl I just saw an Instagram. She drove across the border to Ulta for two hours to go get the skin tint. That kind of loyalty is not normal for a brand. So I'm just really grateful for it. And now I just feel like I owe it to the community of people we've built to grow and build a massive global beauty brand, so they can walk in the doors anywhere in the world and walk into that retailer and say, 'Oh my God, I feel seen.'

It's more feedback I've received from my mentors. They always tell me, 'You've got to stop listening to the noise around you. You're so distracted.' It's so hard, because I'm the CEO, but I'm also an influencer on social media. So I'm constantly having to look at what's online. But the constant feedback I've gotten from people that I admire that are entrepreneurs is, 'You've got to cut the noise. We didn't invest in you, bet on you, believe in you, to hear someone else's strategy. We are here to believe in your strategy.' So I think it's important advice for women in today's very, very, very noisy social media world: Really, really try to put blinders on and stay focused on your journey and your path.

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The Cost of Starting Your Own Business talks to founders to get an honest look at what it really takes to create a company. Not just the financial, but the personal and emotional costs, too. 

Being a self-starter is in Meg Strachan’s blood. In addition to her father, almost every member of Strachan’s extended family runs their own business. “I grew up around a lot of people who own companies, who worked every single Saturday,” she says. “I had a pretty informed idea of what it takes—I’ve seen it all.” It seemed only natural she’d launch a venture of her own, and in 2019, she did: founding Dorsey, a lab-grown jewelry brand offering contemporary yet vintage-inspired heirlooms.

“I was at this little Parisian market where this older French woman was selling vintage jewelry,” she says. “I picked up a pair of earrings with a 1920s deco feel. They reminded me so much of my grandmother, Dorsey, who collected costume and fine jewelry. She wore her pieces in a way that I had never seen on anyone else. That was how I decided to start Dorsey: with this love for jewelry and connection to my grandmother.” 

Plus, Strachan had found her niche: "Lab-grown was, and still is, a disruptive category." Manufactured entirely by humans in controlled laboratory environments, synthetic stones are marginally less expensive than mined diamonds. Strachan recognized the fringe industry's potential—and profitability—and wanted in. "It's giving the diamond market a run for its money and will continue to do so,” she says. “Lab-grown will be the dominant stones one day."

But despite Dorsey feeling somewhat destined to be, and Strachan's insight into the back end of business-building, the journey has been far from easy. On a Zoom call from her home in Los Angeles, the founder reveals the candid details of getting her brand off the ground, from all-nighters to self-worth spirals—and why making her first million didn’t feel like she thought it would.

I held two full-time roles for the first two years of the business. I did my day job, and then at night, on weekends, and in the very early morning hours, I was building Dorsey. For a long time, I couldn't afford to hire an employee, so I did everything myself—the graphic design, everything for the website, all the emails; all the packing, shipping, and customer service. I shipped over a million dollars in orders by myself from my house. Dorsey was all my free time.

I went out to investors in 2019 to raise money. I got my foot in the door and, naively, thought I would be able to fundraise for Dorsey because of my previous career successes at other companies [as the Vice President of Growth for the Girlfriend Collective and the Chief Marketing Officer for Anine Bing]. But I couldn't raise a dollar of funding. Literally—not a dollar. Nobody would invest, so I had to move forward with the business by bootstrapping it.

I started the company with between $600 and $1,000 [of my own money]. I would take the money from my paychecks and put it directly into [Dorsey]. I’m in a double-income household. At the time, I didn't own my house, so I was paying rent. I had an 18-month-old daughter, so I was paying for babysitters and nannies.

If you raise money, it's a totally different experience because you can take some type of salary and have capital for the business to run off of. But starting a business by putting your money into it each month is a very different way to start and run a company. You're personally feeling the exposure every month. It's a constant reminder of the financial risk that you're taking.

I'll never forget: I was in a meeting with the partner of a very prominent venture fund. He looked at me, and his exact words were, ‘You have the exact pedigree of someone we would invest into. [But] we don't really know about the lab-grown market. We asked a couple of girls around the office who like jewelry, and they’re unfamiliar.’ That fund turned me down.

All of [those investor meetings] were so devastating. You get dressed up. You hype yourself up and work with whatever self-esteem you've manufactured for that hour or two meeting. You’re ready to pitch, you have your deck ready. And then they reject you. That was the main emotion I had for the first two years of Dorsey: rejection.

Starting and running a company takes an unspoken toll on your life. I call it a tab that comes due, and the tax on it is very high. There are a lot of personal sacrifices. You have to be ruthless with your priorities. You miss a lot of things—that's the truth. I missed the first four years of my daughter's life. I missed all of preschool. Even if I was physically there, I wasn't mentally there. I basically put my head down, ran Dorsey for the last four years, and when I looked up, my daughter was five. 

I've had to reconcile with myself that, okay, I built this business, and it's had an amazing trajectory. But as a parent, I missed some pretty critical years. I did my absolute best and was there as much as I could be. And it was necessary [for Dorsey]. But was it worth it? I went through a grieving process about that because I'll never get that time back with her.

For me, [jewelry] really comes to life in how it's worn and who it's worn by—the zhuzh of a sleeve, the way the pieces are stacked, or the actual person you're shooting on. So, our best investment was finding the budget for great models and photographers. It was a very big stretch, financially—the model fees, agency fees—but it was my first investment.

I had this conversation with my dad a few years ago. He called and caught me in a moment of feeling scared. I said, ‘The business is doing well, but I'm afraid, Dad. This is getting bigger, and the financial stuff is building.’ He asked me what my worst-case scenario was and it was that I would fail. ‘Can you handle that?’ he asked. I thought about it for a minute and said yes. ‘Then you don't have anything to be afraid of,’ he told me. ‘If you can get comfortable with failing, which may happen, then my advice is to go full steam ahead.’ I realized that if you can accept failure to some degree, you’re unleashed from its shackles, otherwise it will stop you in your tracks and hinder your growth.

[Running a business] is an incredibly lonely and isolating experience. The mental piece is so much bigger than people talk about. One of the hardest parts of starting and staying in a company is the mental fitness you have to have in order to keep yourself moving. There is only you who's motivating yourself. You’re up against yourself day after day for years—that's something that you have to commit to getting really good at.

Some of the darkest moments of my life have been running this company.  A lot of self-worth things came up—a lot of anxiety, depression, and self-doubt. What's weird is that it was unrelated to the company and our success. We've had an incredible trajectory. We did 600 percent year-over-year growth in 2022, and 100 percent last year. We’ve had a journey that I could never have dreamed of. 

It's counterintuitive that you would have some of the hardest, truly most difficult moments of your life, while it looks to the outside world that everything is great. As a founder, you're on a journey that's very integrated with your business, but also separate and apart from it. Those can be mutually exclusive, very layered experiences.

Being able to pay for health insurance for [my employees] was big. The small and seemingly mundane things are the most exciting, like customers who buy from us and come back and buy again. But the truth is, I have never felt that we've made it. I used to think it would be when we hit $100,000 in sales, but the goalpost is always moving. It moved to five million. Then 10. And so on. As a company, I don't look at us and think we've made it—and I don't think I'll ever feel that way. I have worked for many companies that are no longer in business; I know too well how quickly the tides can shift. So, have we made it? From the outside, perhaps. Internally, we are working really hard to make it every single day.

When you combine the financial risk with how you're feeling mentally and all the rejections, the thing that keeps you going—and I can't minimize it—is how your product is received out in the world. You get fueled by people who actually love your product. The people who send us emails about how much they love our products. When I was packing and shipping orders literally in the middle of the night for all of our holiday sales in 2020, that’s what kept me going. We're here because of our clients and our customers. That’s a very easy thing to forget at three o'clock in the morning when you're overtired and financially scared.

My dad said that when you're an entrepreneur, you walk this plank carrying an invisible weight on your shoulders. In the beginning, it feels like a massive weight and only gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Eventually, you learn to put blinders on and do it despite how you feel. You're running on empty, but you just keep going. All of a sudden you're carrying [that weight], but you feel it a lot less. One day, you realize that you've built those muscles and it doesn’t feel as heavy anymore.