Molly Cormier is not throwing away her shot.

Team Letter | Happy First Anniversary, Molly!

November 25, 2025

I knew I was going to like Molly Cormier the first time she bounced into a fulfillment day at the office and took over the music playlist. Energetic, audacious, and deeply joyful, Molly immediately found her place on the team, and played Broadway soundtracks from day one.

That first day, the Hamilton Original Broadway cast album was her pick. If you know me, you know that Hamilton is my favorite musical. What you might not know is that it’s because that musical changed my life 9 years ago. (Molly, I promise this is a story about you. Roll with me a moment.)

In 2016, I went for a run one morning up in Minnesota. We were there on vacation and I was glad that day to not be at work, because honestly, I was in a job I didn’t love. Nothing wrong with the company or the work — it just wasn’t the right level of challenge or the day-to-day experience I was seeking.

I was looking for a playlist for the run and my brother said “you have to listen to this new Broadway musical. It’s about the life of Alexander Hamilton.” My eyes rolled. This felt like it could only go the direction of a cool-history-lesson-Schoolhouse-Rock type of show and I wasn’t into it. Charlie said “trust me, it’s different.”

So I set off running to the opening song of the show. And about 5 minutes later, I stopped dead in my tracks to figure out what in the heck I was hearing.

Lin Manuel Miranda’s work blew my mind. It was more words than I’d ever heard crammed into a musical. It was energetic and audacious, and deeply joyful. I stood still in the middle of County Road 11, marveling at this thing that an extraordinary team of talented individuals created together.

And that’s when I knew I had to quit my job.

Hamilton made me realize that I wasn’t doing the work that I longed to do. I remember thinking “I only have this one career and life. I need to work with a great team and build something I’m proud of, something that makes impact, something to marvel at.”

So I made a plan, I quit my job 3 months later, and on the day I left, I took my brother to Chicago to see Hamilton on the stage. (We marveled at it.) When I got back, I set out to find the teams that made impact, that created extraordinary work together, and that made us proud.

I’ve ‘been lucky enough to get to do that kind of work every day since then, whether it’s with the companies I joined, the organizations I’m a part of, or Alpaca — the company we’re creating together.

Which is why I knew what to do when, exactly one year ago, a spitfire redhead part-time packout assistant with a penchant for Broadway said to me “I think it’s time for me to stop waitressing at the Cracker Barrel, and I’d like you to take a chance on me in a full time sales role.”

Molly was ready to create something to marvel at.

Molly has never worked in sales, but she was willing to pick up the phone and call 100 strangers every day. She’s the first one in the office every morning, so that she can call the East coast before school starts.

Molly has never been part of a start-up, but she jumped in, and now asks amazing questions and comes up with ideas that continue to shape our work each day. She’s unafraid of feedback and she improves every day because of it.

In just her first year, Molly has instilled our company with energy, audacity, and deep joy, and we’ve watched her grow a lot in the process. She also has a strange magnetism for birds and other wildlife, which is entertaining for all of us.

What I see in Molly is pure potential. Because when you’re willing to raise your hand and ask someone to take a chance on you, and then you’re willing to follow it up with BIG work, big opportunities have a way of showing up.

A team with people like Molly, building something extraordinary together, is exactly the thing I knew was missing from my life the first time I listened to Hamilton 9 years ago. So it’s even more amazing that last weekend, by a stroke of pure serendipity, Molly and I got to see Hamilton in the very same New York theater, on the very same day. And we marveled at it.

Happy FIRST Alpaca anniversary, Molly. Now let’s GO — gotta go, gotta get the job done!

KB