2023 In Review

We made it to the end of 2023. I spent some time this past month reflecting on the year, some highlights, some lessons, and other misc. stuff. Let’s dig in. :)

Lincoln was born!

My sweet Lincoln came into the world 2 weeks and a day late. I was so uncomfortable and wanted the experience of giving birth to happen naturally because I was induced for Penelope, but we couldn’t quite get there. The nurse broke my water and I basically had the same contractions for hours and hours, despite pitocin. I chose to go to Broadlawns and have nothing but praise for the midwives that supported my journey!

Having a little boy has been such a special experience. We are wrapping 2023 with an active crawler, lots of little words like mama, hi, dada and sometimes we hear “Tyko” (the cat). Penelope and Lincs are somewhat learning to play together and I’m excited to see their relationship blossom over the next year.

WE SCALED HUMMINGBIRDS

We closed out 2022 with $1m in capital and quickly built out a team. It felt weird raising $$ and then taking several weeks off with Lincoln but it forced the team to really build and learn without me which was important as I retained so much knowledge from running it mostly solo.

Over the year, we got incredible traction, opening 14 cities, bringing on over 1200 campaigns with hundreds of brands, and 15 teammates from all over the country. So my cofounder and I spent the fall raising even more money and closing a deal mid-November for $3.3m. This was a huge moment as Midwest-based female founders.

Women typically raise 2-3% of all venture capital dollars so we ran a really tight process, talking to 80 firms and having over 100 conversations to get to term sheets. We ended up having a lot of choice in who we wanted to work with which is rare in 2023 and overall, I’m really proud of how my cofounder and I got to a closed round in a few short months in this economy.

We also revamped our branding & website with this fresh look and bought www.hummingbirds.com which has been my dream since I saw it listed on GoDaddy back in the day for $100k (we didn’t pay that but it still was not cheap).

I GOT OBSESSED WITH NOTION

During mat leave, I found myself purging, planning, organizing, systematizing everything. Similar to my YNAB endeavor, I feel so much peace of mind when things are mapped out, digitally filed, planned etc. Notion does this so beautifully for me and thankfully Jules Acree has some amazing templates I used to get started and build upon.

From day-to-day life tasks to “wish lists” I can map out for bigger purchases to trip planning to my restock list to my habit tracker, I come back to Notion on a daily basis to get a pulse on where things are at in my personal life.

I tend to supplement Notion with a physical planner (I love the Papier one I got) and my Google Calendar as well which gives me the ultimate sense of control in my life. 😂

WE TRAVELED TO OKLAHOMA

I keep thinking I’m going to write about different sections of our “quest,” but alas you get a short & sweet version of it here. We are going from Alaska to Panama on wheels over the next decade and are taking the trip chunk by chunk starting in Des Moines. We’ve made some incredible progress via bicycle and continued the quest in Oklahoma this summer with the fam and Val my SIL! This means our southern part of the adventure (on bikes specifically) has led us from Des Moines to Oklahoma.

Zach, Val and I had been to Tulsa & Oklahoma before so we knew what to expect, but it was a different experience with a toddler and infant. We found a lot to do and highly recommend getting to those cities with littles for an adventure!

WE MADE SOME UPGRADES

While I was spending a lot of this year getting clear on what I didn’t want in my environment and removing a lot of items from our house, I also got clear on some of the things I did want like upgraded cookware, sheets, jeans, and an office chair that supports my mid-30s back.

I documented the little luxuries I used my YNAB budget to support in 2023 here. One of my favorite large upgrades was our backyard. It was defined as being a “cute postage stamp” backyard so we never had much to work with so we turned it into a proper patio with this table / chairs from Article I really love! Next year, I’m going all in on lights, a grill, and plants / flowers to make it even more magical. The goal is to host a bit more!

My second favorite home upgrade were blinds. Yes, I am such a boring adult who is thrilled about blinds, it’s fine. I am in love with the ones we chose — they’re Hunter Douglas from Royal Flooring based in Waukee. I have two more blinds on my wish list for 2024 for the back entrance and then I feel pretty complete in this department.

And my third favorite “bigger” purchase was our Lectric e-bike! We’ve been a single car family since 2020 (!!!!), which still shocks me. It works 95% of the time so we’ve just done it. But there are certainly moments where I need to get somewhere while Zach is at work.

We looked and looked locally for the right fit and couldn’t get to a price we felt awesome about so ended up going with this one we purchased online. I can’t wait to add more accessories to it so both kids can ride with me next summer! And no, you probably won’t find me biking in the winter.

I BECAME A SOCK GIRL

I just want to acknowledge that I get obsessive about things and this year it’s Le Bon Shoppe socks from CKD in Des Moines. I love buying bigger brands from local shops, it’s the best of both worlds! My dream = having the ability to see where I can get online favorites in local shops… like Baggu or Meadows dresses or my favorite socks or even skincare staples. Think LTK but all local. More on that as we scale Hummingbirds. 😏

I SOCIALIZED WAY LESS AND SAID NO A MILLION TIMES

This year I flexed my “no” muscle in major ways. Frankly, not a lot of it by choice. It’s an intense parenting season with bedtime routines that are hard to do solo and running a fast-growth startup that demands a lot of time.

There was a lot I wanted to do, there were a lot of people I wanted to see, but it just doesn’t work in my life right now. I want to be as present for my family as possible and stay really committed to creating an epic, large, valuable company because I see the impact and the upside for our team, investors, and our family.

I found this year to be intense in that a lot of people want to learn more about our company over coffee — they want to know if we need an office, if we are hiring for a type of role, how we raised money, if we want to use their bank, how to start a business, and so forth. I field dozens of requests for my time every single week from people I adore to complete strangers and it’s been something I’ve really had to understand how to handle with grace.

WE DID FUN MIDWEST THINGS

We enjoyed 8035 Music Fest downtown for its last year there, did lots of Downtown Farmers Market adventures, went on lots of walks and hikes, front yard sprinkler parties, baseball games, National Balloon Classic, a trip to KC with the fam, and let’s never forget T SWIFT in Minneapolis!

AND THAT’S A WRAP

Overall, I’m really satisfied with how 2023 went down. A new family member, really meaningful, challenging work, new & old favorite adventures & experiences, and some personal growth along the way.

I get to do a lot more of the same in 2024, except we’re adding wintering in Central America, a couple weddings in Florence, Italy and San Diego, and hopefully a handful of conferences I get to attend and speak at (manifesting that one). We’ll double our team size, be in a lot more cities, and see some even bigger challenges, which is really energizing for me to solve.

I feel really called to “shed” more in ‘24. I don’t totally know what that means, but there’s an element of simplicity that’s calling to me that feels really refreshing.