If she only knew.

If she only knew.

This isn’t a story about success. This also isn’t a story about success after failure. It’s just a story about failure.

— — — —

Four years ago, I co-founded a digital agency named wimze. Four years later, an old college friend reached out to me and told me how exciting it was for her to watch all of my successes on social media over the last four years. She used the words, “It makes me so excited to see you li-tra-lly crushing.” The conferences, the talks, the photoshoots, the parties. In that moment, the only thing I could think was, “if she only knew.”

If she only knew how long we contemplated wimze with an “e” or wimzy with a “y”. What will that decision say about us? About me? Are we bright and whimsical? Am I effortlessly cool?

If she only knew how many yellow hex colors we considered for our brand guide. Honey mustard yellow, lemon yellow, saffron yellow, goldenrod. Which one will look best on the screen behind me when we win our awards??? Everything seemed so possible.

If she only knew how we racked our brains, late-night after late-night on any whiteboard we could get our hands-on. Every available combination of pricing models, package tiers and hiring roll-outs. Scared, yet still nourished with hope. This is gonna work. Is this gonna work??

If she only knew just how many days we sat, side-by-side on the L train, rehearsing scripts over and over again on the way to a pitch. How many stops we missed because we were too deep in focus or laughter to bother getting off.

If she only knew the bizarre client requests we entertained in the early days — crazy-eyes Susan and the reality tv fishing show. The frequent, “We can’t afford to pay you but it will be good for your portfolio…”

If she only knew that we spent most of our days essentially working out of a broom closet in Brooklyn, taking calls in corners of echoey hallways — one hand plugging one ear, my shoulder squeezing the phone to my other ear, vigorously typing away on my laptop outlining my next sentence and the sentence after that. Man, I loved that broom closet — decorated with my white Ikea desk, a framed photo of my pup, and our one mighty plant.

If she only understood what it meant to us when we landed our first $300K deal. I remember that day so vividly. It happened both in an instant and over the span of three years of work leading up to that moment. The excitement. The hope. The pressure. The realness of it all.

If she only understood how it felt when we lost that same $300K deal, having folded themselves at the beginning of Covid. I remember that day so vividly. The fear. The uncertainty. The pressure. The realness of it all.

If she only knew how increasingly desperate I became each month with every new pitch. An accumulation of hope. Like an endless chord progression with no resolution.

If she only knew how quickly Covid wiped us out. How painful it still is for me a year later to look at the skeleton of our company website — A desolate town still buzzing with the energy of its ghosts. I can’t let it go. If she only knew the twinge in my heart every time I see my title on Linkedin “Cofounder, wimze.”

The story my friend saw was one of me “li-tra-lly crushing.” That was not the whole story, just the highlight reel. This is the rest. It’s the story about running a small business in a competitive industry and simply failing — the story more common, yet less shared. It's the story of striving, aiming, missing, but still landing safely on your feet — making it just high enough to peek over the fence at what could have been.

It’s time to say goodbye to a four-year love, one that I will look back on and think… that mattered. A lot.

wimze, I will hold you dear.