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I was talking to my dad this morning and he was telling me what it was like when he started his business. And he goes, “see, I wasn't like you. I didn't have all these people around me. The support system you had.” Y'all I cackled. I love how he thinks this community just manifested out of thin air.
His comment stopped me because what he was saying is the thing missing for most first-gen founders. It’s not just about information or access. We need people to go to for advice or a gut check. That kind of support is catalytic. It’s not just a nice-to-have. Too many of us only reach for community when we're in crisis. That's too late.
Often, it's the difference between a decision made alone in the middle of the night and one made with the advice of people who've been there.
A lot of us don't have access to rooms like this. So I built one. 🤎
Every single time we sit down together, something unplanned happens. I kid you not, people have reconnected with elementary school friends at this table, sat across from cousins (without warning). Last week, we unknowingly sat two god-sisters next to each other. Most of our founders come from word of mouth and I believe that this kind of serendipity is the reward when the curation is right.
Last week we hosted our supper club dinner, and I'm not exaggerating when I tell you the table has gotten too long for one big hot seat. Which makes me a little sad but what it meant in practice was that every conversation was live at once. People went deep and relationships started forming in real time. And I actually got to listen in on a few of the conversations instead of just facilitating from the outside. One that stayed with me started as a time management conversation.
A founder was in the hotseat talking about the weight of all the demands on her time. And at first, founders did what founders do, jumped straight into solutions. Sharing the tactics and tools that work for them.
Then someone asked a different question: what do you actually enjoy doing in your business?
The tenor of the conversation immediately shifted. We stopped talking about optimization and started talking about permission to do only the things you're good at and genuinely like. Permission to let go of the self-assigned obligation to work every job in your company forever. The conversation opened up into joy, into hiring, into firing fast when you get it wrong, into outsourcing the life admin that's quietly eating your bandwidth. (Several cleaning company recommendations were made. Very important!)
That's the thing about what happens around our table, the most profound answers aren’t always the most obvious ones.
A lot of us figured it out alone, and that's exactly what I'm trying to end. If you haven't been to one of our dinners, this is your invitation to the next one. Keep an eye out, details coming soon. And if you're not in NY, reply and tell me what city we should bring this to next.
Talk soon,
Kelly
When Did Your Business Start Running You?
What started as ownership turned into obligation.
Now you’re in every meeting, decision, and channel… not because you want to be, but because things stall without you.
It’s not a capacity issue. It’s a structure issue.
The Freedom Framework shows you how to rebuild work flows, so you can step back without things breaking down.
BELAY U.S.-based Assistants help make that real by bringing ownership to execution, so your business doesn’t rely on you to function.