Conjuring a business out of thin air

Happy New Year, Friends.

2023 has been a wild ride. I started the year as VP of Scaling at a growing startup where my friend and boss, Kevin, was quitting to start his own thing. I had a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Nairobi, Kenya. My son started high school (!) and I left that VP job to start Bramble and Bird.

As I was leaving, I told a friend “I’m going to conjure a consulting agency out of thin air.”

I didn’t know what that meant when I said it, but I do now.

The process of discovery
In the first 6 weeks of launching B-and-B, I cast a wide net. I reached out to people I hadn’t talked to in years. I went to networking events on fancy rooftops in Williamsburg to practice talking about myself. I signed up to resell phone services and AI platforms. I landed one early project from a friend I’d been chatting with for years, and I tried to enjoy my down time.

Defining what matters
During those early months, I didn’t know exactly what I was building, but I knew what it wasn’t. It wasn’t a tech startup that takes venture money. It wasn’t a coaching business that needs to bring in new clients every week. It wasn’t a membership organization, although I have that strongly in my background, and it wasn’t a solo freelance career because I like running teams too much.

What I’ve learned in the last 4 months is that I am not alone in wanting to build something different. Professional women in their 40s, especially, are ready to forge their own path. We want respect and autonomy. We want lucrative careers, AND we want our time back. We want meaningful work, but more important, meaningful lives. We aren’t “quiet quitting” or “resigning,” we’re setting our own standards for what it means to work and live.

Building something new
Starting in January, Bramble and Bird will be a team of four (4!) consultants with overlapping expertise in insurance tech, underwriting, healthcare, operations and social entrepreneurship. The agency I’ve conjured is exactly what I was hoping for - a diverse group of talented, experienced professionals claiming their autonomy, expanding their horizons, working as a team while remaining flexible in their lives, doing meaningful work to help industry leaders do more with less, innovate, and try new things.

The practical truth is that I’ve recruited a team to help me with one client’s immediate project needs, but what I realize we’re also doing is this:
co-creating a new way of working together that leverages expertise, optimizes flexibility and creates value that will bring clients to us, and I’ve got more amazing talent in the pipeline.