Articles

On the surprising relief of letting (a very big) something go… I’ve really appreciated all the notes from y’all on the first part of my conversation with Heather Thomason of Primal Supply Meats. I know there are a lot of you that have recently experienced similar turmoil or have either made, or are grappling with, […]

On making the (seemingly impossible) decision to pull the plug. Hello! If you’d like to skip straight to listen to my interview with Heather Thomason of Primal Supply Meats, click here. True to form for The Summer of Failure, I saw a couple of days ago that one of my favorite area restaurant’s last service […]

Vermont— yes, seemingly the entire state—flooded over a few days a bit over a week ago. It made national news, so maybe you know this. You may be far away and file it away under “yet another natural disaster” in the abstract feeling that these things tend to take on. I didn’t really register the […]

Greetings! This post is part of a series called Enough is Enough, a summer of exploring failure. We kicked off with a piece on Queer Failure, and if you’d like to read the full series, find that here. Today I’m thinking my way through something that’s been troubling me these past six months or so: […]

Welcome to the Summer of Failure Perhaps you, like my partner Kha and me, have been binging on season 2 of The Bear. If you’re not, no real spoilers ahead. All you need to know is that this season sees the scrappy group working to transform sandwich joint The Beef into an upscale restaurant, The […]

We tend to think of businesses as enterprises that need to last, sustain, grow, and grow some more. If you view a business as an asset—an entity that can grow and sustain value, with a primary purpose of building wealth—then it’s impossible to square temporality or failure as positive possibilities. But if, as I’ve been […]

There’s a rumbling undercurrent, that you might catch if you’re paying attention (or, like, happen to be in daily conversation with small business owners): we’re experiencing a wave of small business closures and upheaval. The pandemic isn’t over and neither is the shakeup of the economy. If I can muster enough bravery, I’ll write more […]

This post is adapted from [Im]Possible Business, a zine exploring radical business alternatives. Learn more and download the publication here. Read another post in this series: Business as Queer Failure Utopias have always entailed disappointments and failures. — Saidiya Hartman, Lose Your Mother Étaín was an “underthings” store in Portland, Maine, that offered an inclusive […]

While working on [Im]Possible Business, inevitably, I’ve had a steady stream of conversations and thoughts that I wish I could add, couldn’t jam in lest the zine morphs into some ungodly 20,000 page un-plublishable tome. The reality is, so many of us are making “uncapitalistic” choices in our businesses every day. It’s just a matter […]

The poet David Whyte talks about seeking the beautiful question: a question that resonates, begs to be unspooled, and, ultimately, leads the questioner towards a more engaged, heart-centered, aligned way of being. My questions are not always beautiful, but they are at the heart of guiding my work and ways of showing up in the […]

Last week I shared some thoughts (and a Venn Diagram!) about the different parts that make up a financial whole. A further thought: It’s not that the business is always right and your emotions are wrong—yes, the data may be more factually accurate regarding metrics, but to be clear, my message isn’t “always listen to […]

I am back in Vermont for the next few months, which means morning walks with Josie the dog in the mossy forest. I write in my head a lot while I walk, and wanted to share a quick snapshot of some ideas I’ve been working through the past few days about different aspects of a […]

Running a bookkeeping service is like having VIP backstage access to what really works and what doesn’t in business; you want to know who has the best champagne back there? Ask the bookkeepers. Now take a cross section of 50-odd different businesses – products, services, micro, million-dollar, whatever: want to know the what most often […]

Cash flow and profit are not the same, and mistaking a profit problem for a cash flow problem can be deadly to your small business.

To read Part 1, how to think about redistribution and giving within your business, click here. In the Part 1 I wrote about the opportunity in stewarding business resources to create more resilient ecosystems. Since businesses are set up to generate more resources than individuals, we can also use them to channel those resources into […]

A client recently asked for advice on how to think about a consistent giving strategy — they work with many non-profit clients, who of course fundraise, have galas, and all the other modes of raising money.  Since the summer of 2020, I’ve been seeing more businesses with regular giving lines in their budgets, but just […]

There’s a whole mess of reasons why all businesses should distribute profits to their employees: -Redistributing money = redistributing power -You didn’t build your business to only benefit yourself -Your employees should benefit from the value they create Those are just three of many, but you get the idea! I’m not talking about the folks […]

As more leaders are considering issues of justice and equity in their businesses the go-to, especially in the online and services business community, has been to offer lower priced spots and sliding scales. While it’s great to create access and ensure that you’re not boxing out people who, for structural reasons, don’t have access to […]

I was reminded in two separate meetings this week that the actual work of making our visions and values real & concrete in the world (ie, running an anti-capitalist business under capitalism) is always imperfect. In the first, I was speaking about my discomfort with where I feel like I’m falling short in my own […]

I’ve written about money being the essential feedback loop in any business. There’s a second, just-as-important piece to having a finger on the pulse of the financials: for anyone interested in justice or equity in their business, understanding the financials is the key to modeling social change in your business. If you’re interested in experimenting […]