a note from a believer:

Sari, I remember that as a kid, I always knew I was different, and wanted to show it. I’d tie my Converse shoelaces in the shape of a star, I’d zig when others zagged, I’d take pride in being Mexican in my mostly White North Carolina small town, and this all showed through in my work. I was Me. And somewhere along the way, that changed, and I wanted to be Them. I wanted to fit in, not stand out. I’d been sucked into a mimesis whirlpool, and started working for the dreams that I thought I was supposed to be working for. My life slowly became more and more Theirs, and I became more lost.

Life was Tasteless. But why? I was living a life that impressed many people, that many people wish they had. I was running a tech startup backed by Silicon Valley VC’s during college, skipping classes to fly to meetings. I was doing everything right — grinding 70, 80, 100 hours a week. I was sacrificing everything to build and grow. I missed my grandfather’s funeral to launch a new fundraising campaign. Whatever it takes right? Move fast and break things. Redbulls and pizza until you’ve 10X’d. I was miserable, and I felt ungrateful for feeling miserable in this life, which became a vicious cycle that ate away at me.

And then I came across Startupy. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen on the internet. When I first went on the site, it wanted to talk to me (literally, I stumbled across it when the home page was a full screen chat box that said hello to you with a blinking cursor that invited you to respond to see what happened). I felt an immediate sense of delight and wonder, this was something totally new. And after browsing the content, I left feeling recharged and awe-inspired — and not just like in the way you feel inspired after watching a Ted Talk, but in a more impactful, lasting way — because it wasn’t just the content that I connected with, it was the way in which it was presented.

There was something about the interface that made the site feel like it was a hidden corner of the internet that I’d stumbled into that was teeming with beautiful life, an oasis, a hole-in-the-wall, Narnia behind a wardrobe, like one of those side quests that you have to work to discover on a video game that fills you with delight and sense of discovery that you just can’t get from completing the main mission. If there were a character that was the community’s guide, like a Clippy of Startupy, I can imagine it’d say something like, “Congratulations, you followed the White Rabbit, and this is where it led to. Since you discovered it, you’re now one of us. Welcome.”

And the thing is, as time went by, that feeling never waned. Every time I saw an email come in from you, I looked forward to reading it. The only email that incited excitement instead of dread at the time. The feeling is still there with the change to Sublime — and in fact, it got better, because as a Believer, I could now not just consume, but also contribute. I felt a thrill the first time something I curated made it to Staff Picks. I only hoped it would resonate with someone that needed it in that moment, as so many thoughts and pieces had resonated with me. Scrolling through Twitter led to more scrolling and then a feeling of emptiness and guilt for wasting time when I finally managed to leave the app — scrolling through Sublime more often than not led me to putting away my phone, getting a breath of fresh air, and getting to work on that passion project I’d put aside years ago.

Startupy itself was not a destination, but it was a magical place with beautiful souls that helped me find my path — or at least, helped me discover that the path I was on wasn’t the only one. After 6 years, I have left my startup. I have also found Love. I have rediscovered Taste in my life, in a way that is authentically Me. I can see a Future again, and I can feel that I’m just getting started.

This is all to say, what you and your team have built means a lot to me.

That captures the core purpose of this email — a heartfelt thank you for building something that became meaningful to me.

What I Learned From a Year on Substack

Reflections on 2020 as an independent researcher