clawing tf back and cleaning my own damn toilet

On changing arbitrary deadlines

I texted Chinburg (friend first, CTO and confidante second) a few days ago with a realization that felt both obvious and liberating: I can just... change the date.

The date I'd set for starting investor pitches—early in the new year—was arbitrary. Ok, not really. It was the threshold between one year and the next, a culturally agreed-upon marker around which we all revolve. But also? Kind of arbitrary. A line I'd drawn for myself that was creating unnecessary stress.

So I moved it. Pitching will most likely happen mid-winter or spring now (once things are, fingers crossed, validated). And you know what? That's ok. More than ok—it's the right call.

Here's what I texted her:

Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is give yourself permission to adjust. Not abandon. Not give up. Just recalibrate based on reality instead of some deadline you made up when you had less information and slightly more time.

What the slower period is teaching me

Meanwhile, we're still growing the Instagram. Buzz is a slow but steady bloom in decibel. And I get to talk about the idea, the vision, the app—over and over again. Practice the pitch. Refine the message. Think deeply about what we're building and why it matters.

This period of not actively doing market validation (see: only seven survey responses out of 50+ attempts) is actually giving me space. Space to absorb inputs from conversations. Space to reject ideas that don't fit. Space to fall deeper in remembrance with the fact that I love doing work that uplifts others. That is a the core of things for me, so much so it make me want to cry. Sure, I want to make money. Who doesn’t? But uplifting others in the process has to be part of the deal. It’s a non-negotiable for me.

It’s at the core of where/how I volunteer in my community. Of Frank Mouth. Of this app. How you do one thing is how you do everything, n'est-ce pas?

A for instance re talking about my shit: two days ago I went on a run with my friend Ruth (we had our first in-town snow of the year—the sage and bitterbrush strung with diamonds along the river) and she asked me about the app. And I found myself run-pitching it to her, refining the explanation in real-time, watching her face light up when she got it. That's practice. That's some kind of work. And it's happening naturally—on run, in the snow, alongside a river.

On clawing back revenue and setting limits

Let's talk numbers, because we should—especially as women—be discussing money openly.

My 2024 revenue was far less than it's ever been. Unemployment, followed by scrambling, a rollercoaster of highs and lows, and a slow-ass rebuild. This year? I increased my small business revenue by $33k—a 79% increase from 2024.

I fucking clawed that back. Truly—when I think about the last year+, I see claws digging in and hear the sound that this digging in makes. From “we’re cutting most of the marketing department” to well fuck to one client to two clients to setting up a house cleaning profile on Thumbtack and seeing what would come through.

And here's what came through: several inquiries from men about top-to-bottom cleaning of their many-thousand square foot homes. After a few conversations, I was viscerally reminded about the dynamics of wealth and labor—how very little people with money want to pay other people to do the shit they either don't want to do or don't have time for.

Scrub shit flecks from toilets. Put away Zephyr's abundance of toys. Deep clean the kitchen. Vacuum and dust literally everything and everywhere all at once. All in homes where pets are present but “don’t really shed.”

Sure, Chad.

I know this is a super privileged place to be coming from. But there were limits for me. Limits that I wish everyone could afford to have, instead of having to say yes simply to survive.

Those limits were: sub-$25/hr to scrub shit from strangers' toilet bowls. Period, end of story and close the book.

I'm not saying I would never do such work. I am saying I wasn't quite there yet, so I held a sort of line for myself. A boundary that felt important even when money was tight.

Don't get me wrong—I was one of those too-busy-don't-have-the-time-nor-do-I-want-to people who paid a small group of skilled cleaners to come to our home once a month and do exactly what I'm talking about, for what amounted to very little money. (They set the price, not me, and I did ask if they preferred a tip every time or all at once at the end of the year—still, I'm complicit in the system of it all.)

But being on the other side of that equation? Considering taking those jobs? It made me think hard about what I was willing to do and what I could afford not to do. About privilege and necessity and the very thin line between them.

I didn't take those cleaning jobs. I kept hustling for marketing and strategy work instead. And slowly, incrementally, I rebuilt.

PS: Subscribe now if you're into this messy build-in-public energy. Miss the last issue? It’s right here. Also literally none of this is ever advice. I’m sharing what I learn through Babe, and perhaps you’ll learn from my mistakes. Hopefully, maybe, who knows, ily. Also if you’re not already, come hang with Babe on insta, Farcaster, and TBA 🟦.