Four years of From Boise
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March 30 was the four year anniversary of From Boise. If you are reading this, you are part of this celebration. From Boise wouldn’t be here without you. For the past few years I have dedicated a newsletter to telling you a little bit about what’s going on behind the scenes at From Boise. Today is that day. If you want to read about the first three years, you can find that here. On March 30, 2021, I sent the very first From Boise newsletter. It went out to 250 people. I was so nervous about it that I had to leave my house immediately after sending it and go for a walk to calm my nerves. Today this newsletter was sent to almost 23,000 people. Thank you so much for being part of From Boise and making my dream job possible. It’s been a really fun and challenging ride, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Year three (2024)Things do not always go according to plan. That was the theme of 2024. In January, I did a little work retreat to do some actual planning and thinking. This was the first time I ever really set aside time to actually plan anything with From Boise. I was flying by the seat of my pants until then. The retreat was magical. I stayed in this incredible Airbnb. It snowed the entire time and I hunkered down with my giant notepads and whiteboard calendar and lots of coffee and chocolate. I had sticky notes everywhere with ideas and questions. I planned out a whole year of content, an idea for guides, I pondered what to do about BFFs, and I made a list of dream sponsors. I left the retreat feeling like I was going to absolutely crush it this year. And then in February I found out I was pregnant, due in early November. I was super excited but naive about how this would change things. I was like ok no problem, I’ve got 8 months to crush it. (Because once you find out you are pregnant you already have a month under your belt - no one told me that!) Well, my plans that I had made on the retreat quickly unraveled because I felt awful in that first trimester. Not in a pukey way, but in a super depressed, oh no what have I done way. I cried every day for like a month. Turns out my thyroid went all wacky and that was making me feel like garbage. I got that taken care of and then I pulled myself together and was like ok I need to figure this out because now I’ve got like 7 months. And so began the change of plans. In my original plan that I made on the retreat, I had a lot of content that I was responsible for and excited to do. Once I started growing a human, I realized I needed to make a plan about how this business runs without me doing all the things because later that year it would need to run without me, at least for a few months. That was really hard, because From Boise has always been very much me. Like the “voice and tone” of the newsletter is me, it’s how I talk normally. I just couldn’t picture how this could happen without me involved. So I tried to plan this out, and then that got hard and overwhelming and so then I just figured I would shut down the business for a few months while I had a maternity leave and come back at the beginning of the year. In June I officially ended my career working with Treefort Music Fest and Duck Club. Bittersweet in all the ways. That is an amazing group of people and I grew sooo much professionally and had so many opportunities over the 9 years I worked there. This also marked the first time since I started working at 16 that I only had one job. It was so great to be able to focus on just one thing, especially because it was my business. It felt like I could finally give From Boise the attention needed to make a sustainable income. In June I also attended Craft + Commerce, which is a conference for creators that is put on by Kit and happens here in Boise. It's awesome. The first time I attended this conference was in 2023 and it totally lit a fire under me. I was so inspired and excited. The conference made me realize that From Boise could be a real business and not just a fun lil writing project. But this year at Craft + Commerce, it was the opposite. On the second day of the conference I left and went and sat in my car and just like stared at my steering wheel, thinking about how so many of the people speaking were making millions of dollars from their creative endeavors but that it had taken most of them 10-15 years to do so. And that those 10-15 years were filled with failures and missteps and good years and bad years. Just thinking about that made me tired. I truly didn’t know if I had 10 more years of this in me. In July, I honestly thought about quitting. Quitting felt easier than trying to figure everything out. Like I could just peace out and have a baby and then get a “real” job. But I also kept thinking of how sad that would be, how many people would miss getting my newsletter every week, and all the time and effort I’d put into From Boise. I mean I literally started it from nothing! To just stop would be such an anticlimactic ending. I realized it was a dumb idea to quit and that it was a dumb idea to pause everything to take a maternity leave break, I got to work getting things ready. July was also around the time that I ended BFFs. It just wasn’t working for me and it definitely wasn’t going to work with a baby in the mix. I didn’t enjoy planning events and I was spending too much time and money on group communications and events. Another significant change was parting ways with Gail and Isabel due to life and work changes. We’re all still friends and I’ve even hired them for small projects here and there. For all of July and August I was back to being a one-woman business, trying to furiously figure out everything that needed to happen in order for me to hire someone and make money. My friend Janessa, who started and grew the elopement company Simply Eloped, helped me a ton by helping me figure out a plan and giving me feedback about building and hiring a team. Hiring someone to take over the Thursday newsletter was my number one goal and getting enough sponsorships to pay that person through the end of the year was my number two goal. Maybe those should have been flipped but that’s just how it was. In August, my hands started to hurt and basically got worse and worse every day. It felt like electricity was shooting through my hands and up into my arms. Apparently pregnancy carpal tunnel is a thing, and holy moly it sucked. I was struggling to type, so much so that I was using voice to text to do most of my emailing and writing. It was really rough, haha. It was the worst at night and I was only getting a few hours of sleep because it hurt so much. Nothing I did helped it except for dunking my hands into a bowl of ice water until they went numb. I legit get more sleep now with a baby than I did with my stupid lightening hands. All that to say, on top of not being able to type normally, I was super duper tired.. Anyway, this situation forced me to think, “how can I get all this stuff done without having to type it all out?” And that’s when I started to use Chat GPT. This whole time I’ve been very against using AI. It felt like cheating. I’ve never used it for anything in my business. But I saw a post about using it to build a business plan and thought why not try it out for creating these things to hire someone. Game changer, y’all. It definitely helped me get all the things built out, but it also really helped me think through what I was doing by hiring someone. I’ll tell you how I did it, because maybe it will help you too. I started by telling Chat GPT that I needed help preparing to hire someone for my business but that before we did that I wanted it to really understand my business. I asked Chat GPT to ask me 10 questions about my business. This was honestly such a good exercise! It asked me things I had never even thought of. I also copy/pasted my brand style guide and mission statement. Step two: ask me 10 questions about the role of Thursday newsletter assistant. Once I answered these questions (which was another amazing thinking exercise), I asked it to create me a to-do list to get someone hired. The things on this to-do list included: creating a step by step guide (or SOP) of the job I wanted the newsletter assistant to do, creating a job application, coming up with interview questions, and creating an on-boarding process. I used Chat to create all of these things. I did a lot of editing, but it was sooo much faster and easier than writing it all from scratch, which was essential because of the hand situation. Creating the SOPs (aka Standard Operating Procedure or step-by-step guide for the job/task) took the most time. To do that, I used Loom and recorded a video of my screen while I talked through each section of the Thursday newsletter. Loom will also give you a transcript of the recording, so I took that transcript and pasted it into Chat GPT and told it to write an SOP based on that transcript. Boom, done (with some editing). I then took these SOPs and the video, and put that all into an organized way in Notion. Once I completed that big task I was ready to hire someone. You might remember that I put out a hiring message in August. Thank you so incredibly much to everyone who applied for my open positions. I was floored by how many people wanted to work for From Boise! I wish I could have hired all of you. But I found Carly, and she is just perfect for the job. She started working in September. I also hired Ari, who does all of our social media management and she is also just perfect for the job. (I used Loom and Chat to make the social SOPs too!) They are both amazing and so creative and reliable and easy to work with. I am so lucky to have them and to have hired them when I did. In September, Carly officially took over doing the Thursday newsletter. Before she sent the first one, I realized it was kind of weird to have an email from her come from the “Marissa at From Boise” email. I reluctantly decided that should change. Honestly, I was really sad about this. You may remember me talking about how I was sad when I realized From Boise needed to be a real business and I needed to be more serious about making money. This kinda felt like that. An end of an era, I guess. I was worried about how this change would be received by all of you and if it would change the essence of From Boise. But I knew deep down it was a step toward me not doing all the things. I also felt like it would allow Carly to feel more ownership with the newsletter. If she was sending it from my email, it would just be this weird situation of ghostwriting and like kinda lying, ya know? And so I created the email address withlove@fromboise.com (which Carly came up with, by the way!). I know some of you miss getting the email from me but it was a good decision for the long run – and some of these are still from me! In October, my baby came. 4 weeks early. My water broke on a Sunday morning and it was like the movies. Everyone says it won’t be like that but it sure was for me. Funny enough, before we left for the hospital I was like, “I need to schedule my Tuesday newsletter!” which was kind of ridiculous given the situation, but I have never missed a newsletter and I wasn’t going to miss it then. We had nothing ready, not one thing. Luckily this happened like 18 hours after our baby shower and our families were in town for the occasion, so they set up our entire house for us. I know you don’t need much for a teeny tiny newborn, but you do need some stuff! The only thing I did have ready was those dang SOPs and Carly and Ari working away - thank goodness! I tied up a few loose ends when we got home from the hospital and then I went on maternity leave. I worked very minimally through the end of the year and it was amazing. I feel so lucky to have been able to move so slowly throughout those first three months. I took naps and went for walks and ate a lot of soup. Mostly I just looked at my baby. We have also had our share of feeding challenges with the baby, navigating a tongue tie that wasn’t discovered until she was 8 weeks old. I was very very glad to be able to dedicate the time (lotssss of time) needed to feed her each day. PS - if you have a tongue tied baby, I highly recommend Family Seasons. Lynelle is an actual angel. Also reply to me if you want to talk about it, it can be a lonely experience. Looking back on all this, I’m glad I kicked into gear when I did and got the things ready that I could. It wasn’t perfect but it worked. Nothing could have really prepared me for having a baby and life thereafter. The things I got set up and the team I have allowed me to feel ok taking time off to care for my baby and myself. All the effort I’ve put in to be self employed has allowed me the space and flexibility to stay home with my baby. I’ll forever be grateful for that. Year four (2025)And here we are. Four years of From Boise. Last year my mantra was “do less, better.” That kinda sorta happened. I followed that mantra when I made the decision to stop doing things that weren’t really making me happy or making the most sense business wise, like making and selling merch and doing BFFs. Mostly it seems like I did less because it was all I could manage. Eventually I got to a point last year when the mantra was “just get it done” or “this is what we’re doing now” – which is not so bad either haha. Sometimes done is better than perfect. What is my mantra for 2025? I’m not sure yet. Everything feels different for me and I think I’m still just trying to figure out how to be a mom and a business owner. When I was first getting back into the swing of things at the beginning of the year, I felt so disconnected from what was going on in the valley and From Boise. I felt like I couldn’t write anymore, like the words just didn’t come in the way they used to. But the more I work and write, the better it feels. My mental state has been all over the place, but I’m working on that too. I’m back to working late nights and weekends, but that feels different than it used to. It’s amazing how much you can get done in a few hours when it’s the only time you have. Here's a few things on my mind for 2025:
The main thing on my mind, though, is money. Figuring out how this free newsletter can turn a profit has always been my biggest challenge. And let’s be real, money is what keeps this all going. Here's a few ways you can help support our work:
Thanks so so much for reading From Boise. Here's to the next four years! With love from Boise, Marissa
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From Boise
Every Tuesday, read a story about a person, place, piece of Boise history, or local happening. Every Thursday, get a huge list of things to do over the weekend. No news, no politics - just the fun stuff.