A Whole Year of Festa Paper
A YEAR IN REVIEW
1. Pre-pandemic bliss. 2. Picking up the first round of FP inventory (!!!) 3. Just a photo because I really love my hat. 4. When your company launches in less than 12 hours but your mom tells you that you need to take your clothes out of the dryer. 5. Shipping out some of the first orders. 6. Pandemic has begun. Everyone is posting their zoom happy hours with their co-workers. I felt left out so I pose with my skincare products just to feel something. 7. Was stressed enough to venture outside. Yikes. 8. Didn’t realize my camera was on during a call. 9. Woke up covered in paper samples. 10. Got a bloody nose during a call. Made a joke about how my nose was new. The other person did not laugh. 11. An early 2020 headshot that I heavily edited because I am vain. 12. Shipped out 100+ orders in a night but couldn’t be bothered to take out my AirPods. 13. Spelled my own name wrong in my inaugural newsletter.
Hello and happy first Monday of February!
I hope you enjoyed the two emails I sent you last week. Apparently, if you click the send button twice, it will do just that. Who knew? It is concerning how many of you reached out last (*a lot of you have been asking*) week and asked if I actually sent Naomi Biden a letter requesting to be her friend. First of all, I am so flattered that you think I have access to people who know her address. Olivia Pope adjacent, if you will. Second, I am not that thirsty. Love that you guys keep me humble. Third, Valentine’s Day products are live on the site! Postcards already sold out once & are being restocked on Wednesday. Be sure and send your people some extra love this year.
As mentioned last week, I switched up the schedule to make this week’s category “This Month at FP” because...Festa Paper will turn ONE on Friday, 2/5! “How about that ride in” vibes, am I right? When Festa Paper launched masks were clay, Corona was just beer, and the two-time impeachment man still had a Twitter. Life was different. I was different, but mostly because I did not have grey hair and tech-neck. I wasn’t sure how I wanted to ~share~ my ~journey~ of the past (almost) 365. I contemplated doing the usual milestone shtick: a carousel of photos showcasing the raw, real moments, but also the cute glossy ones, with plenty of text about how it is hard and how comparison is the thief of joy, but how I could never imagine doing anything else because I am so happy. It would be humble, it would be cheeky, and it would also be self-congratulatory. And here’s the thing - it wouldn’t be a lie. It is hard, comparison is pointless unless you’re picking out a paint color, I am humbled every single day by this job, and I am fulfilled. But it wouldn’t be honest, nor would it be the full truth. And today we are being honest. Tomorrow, tbd.
That said, I’ve called on a few of my close, personal friends to help me out today. Their names are Zach Braff, Walt Whitman, Brene Brown, John Mayer, and Francesca Maria Eleonora Pompili. I’d like to thank all of them for their time, wisdom, and friendship. Love you guys.
I hope you enjoy learning about what I’ve learned this year.
From my desk, to yours.
xo,
FP
“Nobody Cares, Sean.” -Zach Braff (Scrubs)
Scott Foley, if you’re reading this (you’re not), I need you to know that I care, deeply. I would’ve NEVER chosen Fitz and Vermont. Jake Ballard gang gang gang (if you’ve never watched Scandal, this will mean nothing to you).
I’ve come to learn that all of the embarrassing /cringe/foolish/careless/human moments aka mistakes that I think are so mortifying are not. Why? Because no one cares. No one is sitting at home thinking about how I spelled something wrong or how they did not find one of my greeting cards funny (if they are, huge s/o to me for living rent-free in their brain). People are preoccupied with their own lives. None of us are that special. It matters only to us because we are all so consumed with ourselves. The price of admission to being self-absorbed (which we all are as a result of social media and our cultural need to be unique and “special”) is neurosis. I often joke that in life I don’t sweat the big stuff, only the small stuff. I can be consumed by inconsequential things because of my ego. And you know what? No one cares. And you know what else? It is freeing to let yourself in on the secret that your shortcomings aren’t a big deal because your status in life isn't so important that they matter. We are tiny specks in the world. And that is wonderful.
“Be curious, not judgmental.” -Walt Whitman
Before FP I was just about the smartest business person to ever walk this planet. There wasn’t a company or a product that I wouldn’t read up on, use, or interact with that I didn’t think of a half a dozen things that they could change in order to be better. I would think, “Wow, these improvements seem so obvious, why aren’t they already doing them?”. And then I started a business and learned that every single thing within a business is tethered to 10 other things, which is tethered to money, which is tethered to an actual human being behind the scenes. There are so many improvements and changes I want to make to my company, my website, my marketing, and so on. However, I am one person who has a bunch of other stuff I have to do to stay afloat, I am not VC funded, and I need to sleep from time to time. It was only after starting Festa Paper that I realized I had subhuman expectations of so many businesses. What might seem like a small tweak is in fact a big undertaking that would impact a handful of other things. An example of this - the homepage layout on my current website. It’s lovely and functional, but it’s not groundbreaking. The format of the layout has been the same for a year. Why haven’t I changed the format in a year? Because I made cards, not code. If I wanted to fully customize the homepage, I would have to fully write the code for my entire site. As it stands now, most of it is a template with some very basic code overwriting. Why? Because the hosting platform only allows so much customization before requiring you to abandon their provided templates entirely. Pre-FP FP likely would’ve thought, “Why don’t they ever have a different layout? That seems so easy.” The naivety! Humans can do a lot, but they also only do what they can do.
“Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage”. -Brene Brown
I fancy myself to be a fairly confident person. I have high self-esteem, and I’m self-aware about my less than desirable qualities. However, nothing has ever made me reckon with my insecurities on a daily basis more than becoming an entrepreneur. The two things I’m most insecure about are my intelligence and vulnerability. I know I am bright and blah blah blah, but I have highly intelligent parents and very smart siblings. School was always challenging for me. I don’t walk through life thinking I am dumb, because I know I am not, but I am also a human being who reverts to her childhood self when I make a mistake that brings up these insecurities. I am insecure about being vulnerable because I’ve written the story in my head that if you show too much of yourself, you’ve handed over control of your narrative. I cannot blame my family for that one in therapy, that hubris is just my good ol’ ego. Every single day I make mistakes that make me feel, even if just for a moment, like a fool. I produce work, original work, and then put it out into the world, and think about shutting it all down because I’ve revealed too much of myself. Insecurity is WILD because it somehow is one of my biggest motivators and also something that forces me to practice positive self-talk every single day. I have not mastered this, and I don’t think any of us ever do. I know I am smart and I know that fear of being “seen” is just rooted in ego (aka Nobody cares, Sean), and yet here we are. And what’s crazy is, I have never felt more sure of who I am and what I am doing. I’ve come to learn that confidence is just a muscle - it gets stronger with practice, but also tires in the process. I am SWEATING after writing this lol xoxoxoxo, my ego.
“Don’t be scared to walk alone. Don’t be scared to like it.” -John Mayer
Being an entrepreneur, particularly a solo entrepreneur, is cripplingly isolating. If you’re lucky like I am, you will have amazingly supportive friends, family, and fellow entrepreneurs in your corner. However, at the end of the day, it’s just you. There is no one who fully understands what you are going through (yes, other entrepreneurs get the gist, but they aren’t running your exact company, and you aren’t running theirs). There’s no one with you to experience the highs and lows. There’s no one who catches a mistake that you might’ve missed, and there no one to blame when something goes wrong (as the youngest of 4, this one is very hard for me). Conversely, there is no one you have to get approval from. You make your own schedule. You don’t sit on Zoom all day. No one gets credit for your work. You can drink on the job. It has its perks. There are some days when I feel so alone that I think I just might become an accountant (jk, I have never and will never be THAT desperate). And there are some days when I don’t speak to anyone other than my roommates (hi mommy & daddy!) and absolutely love it. As it turns out, I really enjoy my own company.
Loneliness is something many of us are experiencing. It's painful for many reasons, but for me, being alone with my thoughts…painful. Scary. Daunting. The shower is literally the only place we are ever fully “offline” and alone (unless you’re not, and in that case, good for you). Showers are like 15 minutes if you don’t hate the turtles. I generally work for 10-12 hours a day (humble brag about how I am bad at time management). That is so many hours alone with my mind. Sometimes I listen to music or a book, and sometimes I force myself to just be. Like everything else, I haven’t mastered this. It’s uncomfortable. I think about cringe-worthy things I did 10 years ago and contemplate changing my identity (Nobody cares, Sean). I think about things I wish I wouldn’t have said because they were not kind. I think about money. I think about the time I spelled my name wrong on my taxes (no, seriously). I think about if it all matters. I think about John Mayer. But overall, I think about how two years ago I would rush in and out of the shower because 15 minutes was too much alone time with my thoughts (and because I care about the turtles). So yeah, quit your job and start a company in order to force yourself to be quiet, and alone with your thoughts. I’m sure therapy and whatnot would also work, but starting a company from scratch seems like the easier, more practical option.
“People are kind & we will always get what we need.” -Francesca Maria Eleonora Pompili
When it comes to community, I’ve always had it made. Amazing family, friends, family friends, and so on. I’ve always felt loved and supported. I’ve always been encouraged and been told I am capable. I’ve had the great fortune of believing that humanity is largely decent because that has always been true in my experience. However, this past year has opened my eyes up to truly what being a kind person can do, and how much we all need one another. I cannot tell you how many times in the past year I have received thoughtful, genuine, gracious messages of encouragement. Sometimes these messages come from people I know, and sometimes they come from strangers. And somehow they almost always come at times when I need them most - on tough days or in moments of self-doubt. They also roll in on good days and mean just as much. I don’t receive these messages because I am so special or because what I am doing is so incredible, etc. I receive them because humans are decent, and we all underestimate how good people are. It’s easy to forget, especially after this past year. But people are good, and they will show up for you.
The day FP launched, I was a lot of things. Proud, excited, exhausted, scared, freaking out that my shipping portal was charging $8 on $5 greeting cards, and feeling very vulnerable. I was quite close to what I like to call a shame-spiral titled, “you leaned TOO in, girlfriend”. I mean, I hadn’t slept in weeks, my net worth was envelopes, and things were not going as planned. The perfect scenario for a cute little shame-spiral. And then, in comes a text from my brother’s friend. At the time, I didn’t know this person all that well (now I’d consider them a friend — congratulations on the promotion!). I’m pretty sure they didn’t even know that Festa Paper had been in the works. It was a sentence, the text. So simple. But it was sincere. And it was a reprieve. Compliments from others should never be what gets one out of negative-self talk nor should one rely on them to offer perspective, but they certainly don’t hurt. I think about that single line of text often because it taught me that even if only realized in retrospect, we always get what we need when we need it. People will show up. It might not be the ones you expect, but they do. It also helps when they aren’t ugly (on the inside or outside), you know?
If you’re thinking a nice thought about someone - tell them. Life is short, they likely need to hear it, and you get what you give.
I am grateful for Festa Paper in a way that is overwhelming at times. It provides me with the daily reminder that I have wonderful people in my life. It allows me to do what I’ve loved since I was a 7-year-old girl for a living (I can relate to professional athletes now, obviously). It tests me in every way possible. It gives me hope. It’s introduced me to the most kind, wonderful customers and vendors who inspire me with their goodness. It’s been my steady - whenever the world gets loud, I always find comfort in taking pen to paper. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It’s thrilling. I love paper, I am so proud of myself, and I am excited for what’s to come. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I am as happy as a (chic) pig in the mud. Cheers to one year & many more!