It’s late. You’re up scrolling when you should be sleeping…or working, or doing literally anything else, and then you see it. A funding announcement. A deal closed. An award you wanted.

And if you’re anything like me, you spiral a little.

That should’ve been me. Why wasn’t it me? I know I’m better in all of these ways [insert list]. Then the petty, if they can, I DEFINITELY can. Right?

And then I put my phone down.

That was last week. This week I'm celebrating five years of building Guava. February 19, 2021, I left my job with a million dollars raised, a deck, and a dream…

A US startup just hit a $1 billion private valuation, joining billion-dollar private companies like SpaceX, OpenAI, and ByteDance. Unlike those other unicorns, you can invest.

Over 40,000 people already have. So have industry giants like General Motors and POSCO.

Why all the interest? EnergyX’s patented tech can recover up to 3X more lithium than traditional methods. That's a big deal, as demand for lithium is expected to 5X current production levels by 2040. Today, they’re moving toward commercial production, tapping into 100,000+ acres of lithium deposits in Chile, a potential $1.1B annual revenue opportunity at projected market prices.

Right now, you can invest at this pivotal growth stage for $11/share. But only through February 26. Become an early-stage EnergyX shareholder before the deadline.

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…I would not have imagined what the next five years had in store. Taking an idea from your head and bringing it to reality. Asking investors to fund it (giving them the opportunity to invest 😉), getting told your baby is ugly over and over again. The pivots to your business model, the broken promises to your friends and family, and those same people having to talk you off ledges in low moments. The moments I almost didn't make it through. I've disappointed people. I've disappointed myself.

There's a lot of advice out there about knowing when to quit versus staying in long enough for timing to work in your favor. Most of it is just noise.

What's kept me in the game isn't strategy. It's stubbornness. And if I'm being really real, it's faith.

No one rejection ever changed the picture I had in my head. Partly because I'm hardheaded, and partly because I believe my steps are ordered.

Keeping going is a practice. In faith. In reflection. In tuning out the voices, including your own that tell you it's not working. In returning, again and again, to the belief that your mission is bigger than any one moment of doubt. Bigger than the spiral. Bigger than the comparison. Bigger than the “no”.

Whatever that looks like for you, hold onto it.

The founders in this community remind me, again and again, that what we're building is needed, even when it's not obvious to everyone else. That's not nothing. Thats everything really.

Five years is a lot of spirals. And a lot of phones put down. And a lot of emails sent anyway. That's what keeping going actually looks like.

On the other side of five years I know one thing for certain: the founders who make it aren't figuring it out alone. They're surrounding themselves with the right people to be in it with them.

That's what I'm building next.

A 90-day sprint for Black and Brown founders who are generating revenue and ready to hit a specific goal…your first wholesale account, your first hire, breaking through to your next revenue milestone. I’m keeping it small with 15 founders, we’ll meet IRL and virtually as a whole group and in smaller masterminds and do the kind of work that actually moves your business forward.

We're launching the pilot in March and I'm looking for the right 15 people. If you're interested, reply to this email and tell me what you're trying to accomplish. I read every response, and will follow up directly.

Talk soon,

Kelly

Forward this to a founder who's been quiet lately.