DIP 041: Some personal news

Plus, indigenous baby food, a redesigned tampon, and auditory care is on the rise

👋 Hi. TL;DR: I’ve made the (exciting! terrifying! liberating!) decision to go full-time freelance. My books are open and I’m ready to dive into new projects. You’ll find a wandering soliloquy below and can set up a 30-minute call with me to chat. I’m open to both retainer-based and discrete projects, with a preference for early-stage companies (pre-launch to Series A) and brand and storytelling-focused work. We’ll be back to our (ir)regularly scheduled programming soon — I promise. As always, reply with questions, comments, or thoughts about anything you read here.

This issue features 13 brands. Fifty-four percent are white-led, 15 percent are Black-led, and 31 percent are led by non-Black people of color. You can find the complete Chips + Dips inclusion index here.

The Chips 📎

• Schmutz makes haroset, a food that I only ever eat on Passover but, given the chance, would gladly consume year-round.

• Bidii Baby is a Navajo-run baby food company that supports indigenous farmers and growing practices.

• Roon is a platform that offers community- and expert-sourced advice for complex health conditions, starting with ALS and glioblastoma.

  • The newly relaunched Loom app also blends expert advice with community-sourced storytelling.

• Sequel gained FDA approval for its redesigned tampon, engineered to reduce leakage and improve comfort.

• Guaranteed is reimagining end-of-life and hospice care.

• CB2’s Black in Design collection is a platform for Black furniture designers across the globe.

• I’m fascinated by companies like Neko, Prenuvo, and Ezra, all of which offer full-body scans for early disease detection.

• Root and Seed makes conversation cards designed to unearth and preserve family histories.

• Auditory tech is gaining ground and I couldn’t be happier to see it (hearing loss is linked with cognitive decline in older adults and data suggests that people wait, on average, 10 years before seeking treatment). I’m seeing more and more people wearing Loop earplugs, Ozlo is investing heavily in paid social, and the Wall Street Journal covered the rise of high-tech hearing aids.

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The Dip 🖍️

I hesitated to write this, as always, for fear that it would come across as self-serving. The truth is that it is; writing has always been a means of catharsis. But there’s also a chance that at least one of you is wrestling with the same things I’ve been wrestling with and that this little glimpse into my brain might offer confidence and clarity.

↯↯↯

Here are some things about me:

• I do not make big decisions easily.

• I crave stability and a sense of security.

• I care a lot. Often too much.

I’ve spent the past four years at a mental health care company powered by the most thoughtful and driven team I’ve ever had the honor of working alongside.

The neat, tidy answer to why I’m leaving is that I prefer early-stage settings. The neat, tidy answer to why I’m freelancing is that independent work can be the best way to ensure that I’m only and always working with early-stage companies. 

While that’s all true, the real answer is far more existential.

↯↯↯

I’ve spent most of my life motivated by a sense of fear. As news of layoffs swarmed my Twitter and LinkedIn feeds earlier this year, I felt immensely fortunate to be working at a company that was doing well. Or maybe I just felt fortunate to be safe.

The nagging thought that it might be time for something new had been in my head for nearly a year. I tried to quiet it, but instead I came to see that my decision to stay was rooted in fear.

↯↯↯

In one of my near-daily “what am working toward” spirals, I came across Brie Wolfson’s Kool-Aid Factory and became enamored with her perspective on workplace culture. Brie and her vision for Constellate led me to Eeke de Milliano’s interview on Lenny’s Podcast, the 50-second intro of which (about the role of process as companies grow, further explored beginning at the 38-minute mark) was a lightning strike of clarity. 

I lean toward co-creating and building in partnership with colleagues. I’ve learned that if and when a process is prescribed, or when work “must” happen a particular way, my motivation drops precipitously.

Here are some things about me:

• I don’t want to climb a corporate ladder.

• I don’t want to be partnered or married or have kids.

• In the absence of conventional markers of “success,” there is no roadmap for my future.

↯↯↯

I’ve been trying to imagine more expansive ways of being — digging into what I might want for myself independent of what society says I should.

I keep returning to the idea of a more fluid and integrated life. I don’t have a trust fund and I don’t want to leave New York, so I need to work. But I don’t want work to be all-consuming or silo’ed. I want the work I do to support other aspects of my life, so that areas I’m looking to grow into fuel work and work can be a vehicle for intellectual and interpersonal growth.

It seemed like an impossibility until I started to connect with people who are already doing it: people who work nine months of the year and take summers off, people whose core offering funds their hobbies and interests outside of work, people who are living more interesting and expansive lives than I was taught to imagine for myself.

In witnessing other people’s ways of being, I started to see what might be possible for myself.

↯↯↯

Working for myself increasingly felt like the right (or was it the only?) next move. In many ways, it came to be less about the work I’d be doing and more about the opportunity to bet on myself.

Here are some things about me:

• I’m most energized by learning new things.

• I like to be hands-on, get messy, and build from nothing.

• I believe that the way work happens directly informs what happens as a result of that work.

What happens when I set the terms? When I ask for what I want? When I say “no” to the things I don’t? When I actively, consciously, intentionally build a life that fills me up? What happens when ambition is directed toward self-discovery?

↯↯↯

Thank you to the many, many dozens of people I’ve spoken with over the past year about new and different ways of working. And thank you to Tina Yip’s Space To Grow (fka Strtgst) Freelance Starter Pack and my Spring 2023 cohort for being a supportive kick in the butt. And thank you to all of you for being along for the ride.

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Real Dip 📝

Leek and walnut dip.

Go to the grocery store and find a bunch of leeks that looks particularly green. Slice them up and let the slices soak in cold water to get the sand out from between the rings.

Drain and dry the leeks. Slice up smedium-sized yellow onion.

Heat a pan over medium heat, add olive oil, and add the leeks and onion. Let them soften a bit, cut the heat, and toss everything into a food processor after letting things cool.

Add a big handful of walnuts, two-ish cloves of garlic, juice from one lemon, a three-finger pinch of salt, and 15–20 cranks of black pepper. Blitz it, pause to scrape down the sides, blitz again, and drizzle in olive oil until things are looking smooth.

Plays well with boiled potatoes, roasted broccoli, and scrambled eggs.

Thanks for snacking,

— Emily 📬

PS: My phone line is open. Let's chat!