seafood chic weddings, 18 olives, moving bins, etc

welcome back to my newsletter! it’s been a minute.

i don’t update this as often as i’d like to, mostly because i’m spending the majority of my time working on newsletters for my clients — more on 18 olives below — and generally being busy with life stuff. sorry about that.

this edition of my newsletter is going to be a mix of updates and recommendations from across my life. enjoy!

what i’m working on

eliza & i have been quite busy with 18 olives, the consultancy we started last year. but here’s how that has actually looked on a month-by-month basis:

september 2023: we launch 18 olives. cool!

october 2023: i immediately go on a planned vacation to spain.

november 2023: we realize that the fall is actually a bad time to launch your business because nobody has their budgets for next year yet.

december 2023: we have a bunch of meetings with potential clients.

january 2024: influx — nay, a deluge — of new business.

february-april 2024: lol we are possibly too busy to do this all ourselves?

april 2024: oh fuck one of our contracts ended. do we have *enough* work?

may 2024: busy again!

so here’s what i’ve actually learned so far:

• what you want to offer and what people want to pay for may not be the same. when we launched, we envisioned ourselves servicing VC firms. and while that’s certainly been true of some of our work, what people want from us — and who comes to us asking for help — varies greatly. right now, our client roster includes a mix of work: early stage startups that need product copy and SEO blog writing; a hedge fund that plays heavily in activist investing leveraging us for social media strategy and execution during their campaigns; starting a net-new email-first media brand for a DTC company; starting a newsletter/email list for a data science expert with a million followers across platforms; creating educational materials and leading a two-day workshop for a PR firm to equip all their employees with critical writing & editing skills.

• you can’t do everything. the important piece of advice i heard over and over again when we launched was that you should start by offering one or two services you’re great at and then expanding. obviously, i heard this sound advice and thought “we’re built different, actually,” and proceeded to try to offer everything under the sun to clients. we’ve since scaled back — we initially offered earned media, and while we’re quite adept at it, it’s not something we’re as comfortable with as our other services, and it’s harder to offer at scale, so we stopped. saying no is as important as saying yes to client work, too — if we don’t feel like we can do a good job, we pass.

• at least in the beginning, fluctuation is part of the game. sometimes we’re insanely busy, and sometimes we’re scared we need to take on more client work to stay afloat when one contract ends. in the end, it always evens out, at least for us so far.

• your network is literally everything. i bristle at the term “networking.” in college, my professors and the career center made it seem like writing a transactional email asking for help from a successful alum was the way to forge connections and be successful yourself. in reality, networking seems to be just staying in touch with people you meet throughout your career, being nice to them, and being helpful when you can. every client on our roster right now came through my network — we are so fortunate to have not had to grow our business with cold outreach thus far. it’s my opinion that people you know, or even second degree connections, make for the best client relationships.

• this work is siloed, so meet others doing similar work when you can. i learn so much by grabbing coffee or hopping on a zoom call with other people who do the same kind of work i do and work for themselves. it also makes the very independent nature of working for yourself or having a small business seem less lonely.

we are definitely still growing, and i have a lot of plans for our future; i keep telling anyone who will listen that i’d love to grow horizontally, like a law firm, and bring in partners with specialties (like: it would be great to have an earned media/PR person; a social media person; an aud dev person; an internal comms person; etc) and just have this murderer’s row of talented people working with our clients and new clients. probably need to flesh that out a bit more, and for now it’s definitely just the two of us and i’m very happy with that. if you are looking for someone to help with content services, reach out!

what’s new with me

reader, i moved (all of three blocks down the street, into chase’s apartment). in case you haven’t noticed, the new york city rental market is still a disaster, so we’re staying in his place for the time being (although if you become aware of a rent stabilized 2 bed that opens up in prospect heights next year…hit us up…). the cats are very happy sitting on the sectional together every day.

we’re also approaching the 10-year anniversary of me moving to new york city, which feels both banal and significant. what’s increasingly clear to me is that i’m not going anywhere; i love it here so much, i love our little world in prospect heights, i never want to leave.

if i can make one moving recommendation: rent those reusable plastic moving bins from a place like Bin It or Gorilla Bins the next time you move in nyc. so much easier than getting a bunch of cardboard boxes from home depot. and set the pickup date for them to be 1-2 days after you move, forcing you to empty all the bins and unpack quickly.

what i’m watching

• chase has never seen summer house before, save for a couple stray episodes from the current season, so we started from season 1 this week, wirkus circus and all. remember 2016? remember “send it”? remember carl’s “more life” era? perhaps this is the summer of “more life.”

• i guess i lived in a cultural void when the jinx aired in 2015 because i never watched it then. i’m making up for lost time by speedrunning season 1 and watching season 2 every week now.

• i will be the last living person in brooklyn to watch challengers by the time i get around to it this weekend, i fear.

what i’m wearing

as anyone who has seen me recently can attest, i’m deep in my nuuly era. nuuly is usually fine. sometimes, it’s good. rarely it is bad. they have some size inclusion (it works for me but may not work for everyone), and a variety of brands that are exciting to wear and occasionally make me feel like i should buy them (like this selkie number). some other recent hits from my nuuly stashes:

• chase refers to this as my “mob boss jacket.” it’s chic, it’s oversized, i get a compliment on it every time i see friends.

• i did not think my thighs were made for levis but i was wrong. i love these ribcage jeans.

• i ride for anthropologie’s maeve pants. i own two pairs — in olive green and floral — and i loved these daisy-embroidered pants for the few and far between nice days of april.

• i bought this to wear to a wedding rehearsal dinner and ended up wearing it out to drinks with friends instead. it’s an insane statement piece, obviously, but i’ll wear anything rachel antonoff makes.

what do you wear to a wedding with a night-before-the-ceremony welcome drinks dress code of “seafood chic”? i’m figuring this out as we speak. i’m obsessed with this theme (you all remember my 30th birthday shrimp cocktail ice luge) and told the bride as much. i’m debating this lisa says gah dress, though i fear it would look a little matronly. the obvious choice, though a bit on the nose, is the rachel antonoff tablecloth-patterned seafood tower sundress mentioned in this perfect bettina blog. anyway, if any of you have any leads on something i should wear (size 14-16 pls), or an incredible seafood-themed accessory, please respond to this email. i am extremely committed to seeing this theme through.

that’s all from me now! i will do my best to not let a bunch of months pass before i write another update here.