#5: How I'm Building My Business in 2022

How going small on my business allows me to go big on life.

I think Tetris is a great metaphor for building a life. Different components, different shapes come at you at varying speeds, depending on the season of life. And our work is to guide them and arrange them as best as we can to build our lives, piece by piece. My business, koko’s nest is one piece I’m building with intention right now…

And quick PSA: Mini Style Mag is running a giveaway on IG right now for one of our blankets. Head over here to enter.

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After I had my first baby, I left my job and any semblance of a traditional career. I’ve written about why I left; but in terms of where I was going, I was actually quite clueless about starting a business.

Just a couple of years out of law school, I was still in this mindset: I left a big career and I know I have big potential, so if I’m going to start a business, it’s gotta be a big business. But many years later, I have realized that going small on my business allows me to build the big life I’ve dreamed of.

Small is a choice — a great one.

Now more than ever, I’m building my business small.

Small means limiting the number of people I have to manage. The more kids I have to manage, the less inclined I am to manage other people. This is definitely a personal decision that suits me best right now. I’m an introvert, and having four young children at home means I am constantly running at 500% overcapacity in terms of my daily social interactions.

Small means keeping my offerings small. koko’s nest has baby blankets and throw blankets. We have dabbled in accessories in the past (and may bring them back in the future). But on the whole, we don’t extend beyond a couple of complementary categories.

Small means having no one to answer to but myself. I didn’t take any investors, I didn’t take on a loan. I took $3000 of my savings and started small. I own 100% of the company and whatever happens, I don’t need to answer to anyone but myself. This has allowed me to be neglectful at times; I’ve put in more effort when it suited me, and less when life got more complicated.

Small means keeping overhead costs extremely low. This allows for the business to be profitable pretty much every month. Whatever else we could theoretically invest in to grow exponentially doesn’t make sense for me right now. Slow and steady, predictable growth with consistent profitability is, in the end, a lot more useful for me personally.

Building a business to optimize life.

When you hear any entrepreneur speak about their business or brand, it’s a lot of hoopla about the promise of a big, successful future for the business. But here’s the thing… businesses are not people. Corporations are not people. If we are optimizing our lives for the benefit of corporations, we are doing it wrong. We should optimize businesses for the benefit of our lives — for the benefit of enriching our lives and the lives of others.

So I’m building koko’s nest to optimize for my time with my kids. I have two kids who are school-aged, but I still have two who are mostly at home. My business is optimized for me to do preschool pickup — to continually witness their faces light up when they see me roll up, to hear the outpouring of non-sequitur statements describing their day. My business is optimized for impromptu trips to our favorite bakery, for Tuesday morning story time at the library, and for hosting play dates to witness the joy of tiny human friendships. My business is optimized for the 11 remaining summers, 11 remaining Easters, and 10 remaining Christmases I have with all 4 kids still living at home.

It’s also optimized for my creativity and other projects. At the beginning of this year I thought koko’s nest would be my only business project for the year… and then this newsletter and content series really sparked something in me. So I’m scaling back a lot of campaigns that I had initially envisioned. Because I can.

A launchpad for the future.

Building a business to optimize for the current demands in life doesn’t mean it is necessarily limited in growth or reach in the future. In truth, I don’t know what the future of koko’s nest will look like. In my current state of “ambitious and tired”, the “ambitious” is largely dormant and “tired” usually wins the day. But I have an inkling that at some point as my kids grow, my nights will (hopefully) have fewer interruptions, and my ambitions will swell.

And when that time comes, this business will be there for me and all that ambition running rampant through my well-rested body. Perhaps the product business will be where I devote more energy and resources to truly scale it into something with bigger impact; perhaps it will pivot into further reviving the American knitting industry. Or perhaps it will simply be the launchpad for something entirely new. Whatever it is, I’m building this business to stay up to date on trends, to stay plugged into the latest technology, and to continue being an invaluable channel for my creativity.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments.