Billy, Don’t Be a Hero: Our Top Meltdowns
When we first started theSkimm, we were at a small dinner and sitting next to the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Skimm A asked the CEO what she does when she just needs to freak out about something. Does she cry? Does she have a parent/SO/friend to call and vent to? Does she go in a room and scream into a pillow? And the CEO said she didn’t. She kept it in. A lot of people looked around at her and smiled in awe. We were terrified.
Running a company is very hard. It is very personal. It is very exhausting. We are both very private people, which makes it even harder sometimes to share vulnerabilities with other people. It also makes us value having a co-CEO model even more, because we have one another to lean on.
Looking back at that early dinner mentioned above, we are distraught to think what a bad example that almost set for us. It’s not healthy to keep a ‘game face’ on all the time. And therefore, here are the moments from the last few years where we have felt exposed, sad, and at times embarrassed.
The Meltdowns:
The Umpteenth ‘No’
We’ve always been open about how many VCs turned us down in the first year of our business. We developed a thick skin and — while it was hard to do — we kept our heads down and focused on the exponential growth we were seeing instead. However, there was one VC, that we REALLY wanted to work with. We felt they understood us and would make or break whether or not we’d get to the next level as a company. On a Friday night, this partner emailed us :
We are going to pass on the opportunity to move forward with an investment. Much of our discussion was around our internal comfort with investments in companies which are more content-centric than technology centric. Ultimately, we felt theSkimm was outside our sweet spot.
Skimm B lost it. It was the ‘no’ that sent her over the edge, and she sobbed in bed for an hour. Skimm A and B’s parents asked why was she taking this one so hard. It was hard to explain, but she just took it so personally and felt — for the first time — a strong sense of self-doubt in if theSkimm would work. Skimm A helped her refocus. This was one of the moments where having a co-CEO model was necessary.
Exhaustion
Before theSkimm, we never understood how people could really crack from exhaustion (and then every CEO and entrepreneur before us silently laughed to themselves). We have each had moments where we just broke down from pure exhaustion and running on empty. It’s debilitating, it’s embarrassing, and it happens. One of our moms used to say, “It’s a luxury to have a nervous breakdown.” We don’t have that luxury. As a result, we have put parameters in place around how often we will travel, when we will take meetings, and when we sometimes need a mental health day.
When People Just Don’t Get It
Skimm A once came back from a meeting with various brands, pitching why they should work with us. They were old school brands, most of which told her they had no spend allocated to women or digital. Yes, you can laugh at that. Skimm A came back to the office and broke down. Skimm B said take a minute, and get your shit together.
Being a Manager
Neither of us have children yet, but we firmly believe that being a manager will make us stronger parents. You know how when you’re growing up you often forget to say thanks to your parents, you sort of assume they’ll always be there so you can act out a bit, and they’ll love you forever? Kind of sounds like being a manager to us. Being a manager has been both the hardest, and the most rewarding role for us. It’s had the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. When those lows hit, it feels personal and puts us into self-defense mode. That’s not healthy. There have been multiple times where one of us has talked the other one down from taking things so personally.
“Do You Work on Commission? Big Mistake. Big. Huge!”
One of the most embarrassing headaches we have as female CEOs is that there is an expectation that we have to look nice. Looking nice often costs money. That money has to come from us personally, and that is incredibly limiting and cost prohibitive. We’ve been lucky to forge relationships with some designers who let us borrow clothes. That usually works out well — until recently. One designer told us they would only lend a size 2 or zero. If it was anything bigger, we would have to pay. We’ll just leave that here. We would be lying if we said that this wasn’t like a punch to the gut.
New Entrepreneur Lesson of the Day:
It’s OK to have a meltdown. We are all human. As leaders, it’s important for us to set an example that it’s OK to feel vulnerable when things go wrong, and that the best example we can set is how to recover.
