Articles

How to best keep your books yourself. For most folks just starting out, we do not recommend setting up professional accounting software if you’re not ready to hire out your bookkeeping. There are a lot of options instead of hiring a bookkeeper, that won’t lead to messy finances or tax season angst. And even if […]

or why you’re likely to mess up your own books. As professional bookkeepers, we receive inquires from time to time from folks who want us to teach them to manage their own books— usually this is from folks starting out, or from folks with solo practices, people that don’t quite have the revenue to support […]

It might surprise you to know that there is not one agreed upon theory for how companies generate profit. Like most things, explanations for profit creation are colored by political orientation. Neoclassical economists largely explain profit via a theory of marginalism— profits are generated by the marketplace, where worth is determined by supply and demand. […]

Part two of my deep dive conversation into the Creative Economy with Tara McMullin and Charlie Gilkey, where we think through the impact of the economy on small businesses and creators, and think through where what we might create instead. – Kate Tyson Read part one here: The Creator Economy is Eating Creative Acts. Tara […]

Sometime back towards the beginning of the year I whispered to both Charlie Gilkey and Tara McMullin that I didn’t think the Creator Economy should exist…and that I also thought it was a bit too hot of a hot take to take public. They both told me I was wrong, and so we sat down […]

Last week I published a deep dive into the abysmal state of paid family leave in the United States: The State of Paid Family Leave The TLDR of that piece is that we don’t have anywhere near adequate systems of leave or care, and that sucks, particularly for those of us in resource-limited tiny businesses. […]

I’m not going to be so bold as to say that *you* personally are doing this, but there are a fair number of *you all* out there that fling bonuses around to your team without clear structure or reason. And my hunch is that this is more about dopamine (it feels really good to give […]

Somehow 2024 was the first year we needed a parental leave policy at Wanderwell. Typical of me, crafting a new policy sent me down a rabbit hole, weeks reading everything I could find on the United State’s absolutely fucked support for new parents. And so today I bring you part one, a dive into the […]

More notes on World Building, and business as revolutionary practice, mostly about soap. I spent a lot of time last year writing about what’s not working— systemically, in the economics of small business— and while a few friends jokingly accused me of being a real downer, it needed to be said and, anyway, writing my […]

Greetings from the icy north. After a couple months elsewhere ( Portugal, Philly), I’m back in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont for a long stretch; enough to dip my toe in the word “home” (for now). Texting with a friend last night I admitted that I was mostly feeling at a loss for words lately. […]

I did a little experiment recently where I tracked all the different ways I interacted with service fees and tips in my day to day. Even though I’m aware that tipping is a thing I frequently do, I was surprised at how frequent and how diverse these financial exchanges turned out to be in just […]

Many of you reading this (some of you are my lovely clients!) are bravely attempting to bring something into being to build a better possible world. You’re working to form a living— a business— from your art/activism/wild imaginations/deep talents. I’ve been chewing on some of the challenges around these sorts of world building projects. I […]

John and I just released our 3rd episode in a little Whiskey Fridays series on Business Partnerships, where we take on the D-word: D-I-V-O-R-C-E. Today though, I’m circling back to something that John, a true friend, generously teed up for me to talk about in the last episode on partner wonkiness and changes: a proposal […]

In Northeast Vermont, where I now live most of the year, the interlude between the electric neon of fall foliage and the first snow is called “stick season.” I’ve discovered neighbors I never knew existed on my morning walks: houses and rusted farm equipment tucked away along the trails I’ve been walking for months, unveiled […]

When was the first time you encountered a cooperatively-owned business? If you have at all, chances are it was a food co-op, maybe a with a hippie or punk edge to it; or REI, the outdoor goods empire, a member-owned cooperative. As the movement grows, and more folks seek out more equitable and social justice-oriented […]

In many corners of the business ecosystem, the one book that someone has read about finance is Profit First by Mike Michalowicz. Because there aren’t really many readable business finance books out there, it makes sense that folks, if they read anything on the topic at all, are going to latch on to the most […]

There was this point early in the pandemic shutdown where every time I sat down to meditate, I’d start crying. It was pretty instantaneous. Sit, close eyes, cue the weeping. And so, I actually avoided checking in with myself in this way for a bit. It just felt like too much. Outside of those moments […]

This piece is a bit of a “yes, and…” to two linked pieces my friend Tara McMullin wrote last week. The first, Quid Pro No Thank You, responded to the question: when we put work out in to the world, what does our audience owe us? In her follow up piece, she breaks down her […]

1. I’m winding down the Summer of Failure: this’ll be the last post on this theme for a bit before we move into a less fatalistic feeling fall, though I have one more (extremely special) podcast episode in the works. Dive into the whole rabbit hole here. 2. Finally, a content warning: I think most […]

There’s a not-so-secret fantasy I’ve heard a lot of entrepreneurs voice over the years: the wish that some sort of catastrophe lands you in the hospital for a while, tended by a fleet of nurses. It’s a rather dark and horrible vision, the idea that you need some sort of deus ex machina to save […]