Employee #1, Year #3. Happy Anniversary, Kimberly!
Team Letter | Kimberly's 3 Year Anniversary
Happy FRIDAY, Alpaca!
Earlier this week, Kimberly and I finished an incredibly busy day over a drink at Buvette. We both nearly fell into our chairs, and said nothing for a couple of minutes, letting the day catch up with us before we recapped it — there were two podcast interviews, three sales demos, hiring things, a summer camp to plan, a team meeting, and countless projects in motion. Neither of us remembered if we’d had lunch.
Finally, I said: “Kimberly, what did we even DO all day three years ago?!”Kimberly exclaimed “I KNOW! I know we were busy, like really busy all the time. But doing what?!”
It’s really easy to forget all that we didn’t know, didn’t have, and didn’t see on the horizon when we first moved into our Millwork space three years ago. So in honor of Kimberly’s 3rd anniversary today, I made a few lists: what we had, what we didn’t, what we knew, and what we didn’t.
When Kimberly started three years ago, we had a pitch deck, a little funding, 6 “member” schools receiving 240 packs, and some used furniture we picked up from a school auction. We had a logo and a name, and we had a vague idea of a revenue model with a few early customers (our friends) contributing to the cost of the packs. That’s honestly just about it.
Friends, we didn’t even have a Canva account.
What we thought would be the trajectory of the company was far from our current story. Sometimes I laugh at what we thought was true.
We thought we’d never go to education events. (Ha!)
We thought there wouldn’t be much to do during the summer. (Ha Ha!!)
We thought we’d never hire a software engineer.
We thought we’d be building this company city by city.
We thought we were a direct to consumer e-commerce company.
But what we didn’t have and didn’t know gave shape to how we spent our time and built the company’s earliest product.
We didn’t have core values written down — we just knew we should listen to teachers.
We didn’t have budget for basically anything, so we asked a lot of people to help us, and then we wrote a lot of thank you notes.
We didn’t have a website or social media accounts or a way to send emails, but we knew that we needed to start telling our story.
We didn’t have a single marketing asset besides some photos Kimberly took of our packs in my basement, but we knew that our brand could elevate every educator and the perception of the profession.
We didn’t have Hubspot or a sales process, but we were ready to bring out the best for educators.
There was a lot we didn’t know three years ago. But what we did have 3 years ago today was a person who believed so deeply in our ability to build something extraordinary, that she would just do whatever it takes, every single day, until it worked.
Today, that ethos — to believe in ourselves, to bring our values to work every day, and to do what it takes to deliver the best for our hard-earned customers — is the gift that Kimberly has given our team.
She’ll haul booth gear and survive on egg white bites and squeeze in a 10 mile run before a 9 am meeting any day, and she’ll do it with music playing and a joyful greeting. She works with a combination of high urgency and high quality that most people can only aspire to deliver.
One of my favorite compliments is “wow, I thought you were a WAY bigger company based on what you put out into the world.” We will be, and it’s because Kimberly has instilled that sense of urgency and quality in everything we do.
How did we spend our time three years ago? We spent it building the foundation of a team that cares deeply for one another. We spent it trying a ridiculous number of experiments and learning from what did and what didn’t work. And we spent it creating a company DNA that is comprised of equal parts ambition, action, laughter, and creativity.
Happy THIRD anniversary, Kimberly Bailey. We are so excited to see what you pursue, build, and achieve this year — you run fast, and we’ll do our best to keep up!
KB