I'm Building This Thing From Scratch - Here's Why

Written By: Cheri Groves - Cover Image By: Kaitlyn Baker on Unsplash

I want to tell you about the moment I decided to launch an online store instead of just talking about launching an online store.

It was not a montage moment. There was no clear vision, no dramatic mood board, no epic motivational playlist. There was just me, a laptop, a lukewarm cup of coffee, and the quiet realization that if I kept waiting until I felt ready, I was going to be waiting forever.

So I just... started. Messy and uncertain and convinced I was going to embarrass myself.  Which is, apparently, how most real things begin.

Why Now. Why Any of This.

I'd been sitting on the idea for Authentic Affirmations long enough that it had started to feel like something I was going to do someday, when the timing was right, when I had it more figured out, when I felt more confident about “everything”.

But here's the thing about waiting for confidence: it's a trap. Confidence doesn't show up before you do the thing. It shows up after. Usually quietly, about six weeks in, when you realize you haven't burned it all down yet and maybe you actually know what you're doing. Listen I'm not saying I know what I'm doing, but I'm not letting that stop me.

I picked Shopify partly because it made sense for what I wanted to build. Partly because I needed a platform that wasn't going to require me to also become a developer - no thanks. (Apologies to all the amazing developers I know!) And partly because at some point you have to just pick something and commit to it instead of spending three million years comparing options and making zero actual progress.

On Making Products That Don't Suck

This part mattered to me more than almost anything else.

There's a version of this brand that could have been fast and cheap and fine. Slap some quotes on a mug, call it a day, collect twelve dollars and some mild indifference. And honestly? Nobody would have been surprised. That's what a lot of this space looks like. Generic affirmations on generic products sold to women who are too tired to notice they're being mildly condescended to.

I didn't want to make that.

What I wanted was products that actually meant something. Things you'd pick up and feel something other than "oh, that's fine I guess." Words that land differently because they're honest instead of aspirational. The kind of thing you give a friend who's having a hard year and she texts you back immediately because it said the thing she couldn't say out loud. The kind of product I would want for myself. Swear words on a coffee mug? Yes. Snarky attitude on a teeshirt? Absolutely.

That's a higher bar. It takes longer. It means rejecting a lot of ideas that are technically fine but don't actually do the thing. But it's the only version of this I can get behind because the whole point is that this brand tells my truth, and the products have to do that too. And I think they do. 

Also I Just Really Did Not Want It to Look Like Garbage

Shallow? Maybe. True? Absolutely.

Design matters. Not in a "spend six months paralyzed by font choices" way. I didn't have time for that but in a "your packaging is the first thing people experience" way. If my stuff is honest and grounded and real, the presentation needs to match. But I didn’t want to get bogged down…

So I made calls. Fast. I picked fonts, colors, and a direction and I kept moving before I could talk myself out of it. Was every decision perfect? Nope. Did I care? Also nope. I didn’t want to add this to the pile of “Good ideas I’ve never tried”. I was sick of how long that list has become.

I wanted it to look like something made by a person with taste and intention, not spat out by a template generator. And the only way to find out if I'd pulled that off was to actually finish it and put it out there. So that's what I did. 

What This Has to Do With You

If you're reading this and you have a thing you've been sitting on - a business idea, a creative project, a pivot, something you keep almost starting - get the fuck out of your own way even if you're scared. No one is as hard on you as you are. And chances are anyone you're worried about judging you is so wrapped up in their own “Good ideas I’ve never tried” list that they don’t have time to worry about you. I'm not going to tell you it's easy or that you should just believe in yourself harder that leans a little too hard into the sappy sweet side of affirmations that I’m allergic to. 

What I'll tell you is that I started this while being tired and uncertain and not completely sure it was going to work. And I keeping going not because I feel confident but because the alternative is staying stuck, and staying stuck was starting to feel worse than the risk of failing publicly.

That's not a motivational speech. That's just what happened.

The store exists. The products are real. And I didn't wait until I was ready, because ready was never going to show up on its own.

So take this for what you need it to be - the beginning of my journey that you want to follow or an invitation to start your own.