065: My 5-Year Journey as a Subscription Box Owner

This week I'm getting a little bit personal as I take you through my journey as a subscription box owner for the past 5 years. I'm talking about the ups and downs, the wins and the lessons learned, as I call them, and what's next as we go into year number 6. So come listen. Welcome to the Launch Your Box podcast with weekly tips, tricks, and strategies to start, launch, and grow your subscription box. Now here's your host, Sarah Williams. So welcome back to the Laundry Box Podcast. Today we're going to do something a little bit different. I just recently celebrated 5 years, 5 years of my subscription box business. It'll be 9 years that I've been in business next month, but 5 years for the subscription box. And I started to kind of look back and piece together what that journey looked like for me as a subscription box owner. I'm getting ready to send out box 61 this week. And I thought it would be fun to kind of go back and just tell you about my journey and tell you what happened from year to year as my business grew. And so you guys might already know the story of how it all started for me. And if you don't, you can check out episode number 1 of the podcast. It's the very first episode. I kind of tell you how it came about and when it started. But that journey over the last 5 years has certainly come with a lot of failures. And I don't necessarily call them failures, but I call them lessons learned. It comes with a lot of wins and it comes with lots of personal growth. As my business went from making a few hundred dollars to 5 figures, then to 6 figures, and then into a multimillion dollar subscription box company with thousands of subscribers. And as we get ready to send out that 61st curated box, it has me reflecting on a lot of things on what it really took to get to this point. So I want to share those with you today on the podcast. And so let's just start with year 1, and I, I named it excitement and uncertainty. And anyone that has recently started their subscription box would probably agree with me that anytime you start something new, you're totally nervous, you're really excited for it because it's brand new, but there's so much uncertainty that goes with starting something new. You doubt yourself a lot. You question every move that you make and you're really like, should I be doing this? Is this dumb? Is this a good idea? Like you have all the feelings, all the feelings about it. So I called this excitement and uncertainty. This was year 1 of my subscription box. And I was just really nervous if this idea would actually really work and make money. And I, my goal in the beginning was to have 100 subscribers And that number for me represented a way that I could pay all of my bills at my business if I didn't sell anything else. So if I had 100 subscribers a month, it would pay my rent, it would pay my one employee, and it would pay my utilities. And it would probably give me a little bit of a paycheck too. So I, my goal was to get to 100 subscribers and I wanted to get to that by the end of year one. What I didn't know is I would get to that number by month 3. And I, I saw a ton of growth right away. I launched my subscription. I had planned on 50 for the beginning and I hit 44 and I was so excited about 44. Like that was, you couldn't have picked a better win for me than to have 44 subscribers. And the minute I did that first box reveal and then I put the next month, I had increased my number 25. So I had planned for 75 the next month. I was sold out instantly. And this was happening month over month. I had planned 25 pieces of growth every month, and I'd only planned the first 3 months out because I wasn't even sure if anybody was going to buy this thing. And so when I saw that sell, I had planned 25, increase it 25 a month. So I went from 44 to 75 to 100, 125 by the end of that year, like the 9 months. So I started this in March. So by December I had 3 300 subscribers. Holy cow, 300 subscribers! That was never even my goal. 100 was my goal. And I felt, gosh, just invincible. I felt like I could do no wrong. I called it— I, I called it an e-commerce high. Like, you know, when you like, post one more time, I'm gonna sell one more thing. Like, it's this high that we get on when we're doing well, we're seeing sales, people love what we're doing. It's this adrenaline. And I was on this high for 9 months, and I could do no wrong. I could do no wrong my eyes. This thing was going to grow and grow and grow and it was never going to stop. It was all just figuring stuff out. Like, back then, this was 2017. I didn't have any program to follow. There wasn't anyone teaching how to do this. Like, I didn't have a guide of what I was supposed to be doing here. I was really just winging it. Like, I was just winging it on caffeine and my hopes and dreams. I was doing a great job and it was working and I felt like exhilarated. I I was so, so excited. And then after 9 months of this growth, I hit a plateau. I plateaued. I plateaued pretty hard. I plateaued for months. I stayed the same 3 to 4 months, no growth at all. And you know, I had worked my way from 44 subscribers up to 300. Just in year number 1. And I think that that should be celebrated and I am proud of that. But I hit a plateau. I hit a plateau and I didn't know what to do. So I go into year number 2. And in year number 2, I stalled out. I started the year off just kind of plateaued at 300 subscribers and I wasn't panicked yet. But I decided I needed to figure out what to do next. And there's that saying that you don't know what you don't know. And I didn't know what I didn't know. And I knew that I didn't know things like here I was, I came from this brick and mortar environment and my customers, including all of my subscribers were local at this point. They were local customers in my town. And I didn't know about this big online world yet. My subscription was online. People went there to check out, but I didn't really know how to market to these people that weren't in the same town as me. I knew that I had to do something because everywhere I went, everybody was wearing the same shirt. Like, how many more people could I have in this town that wore the same shirt anywhere? I needed to grow outside of my local area, but I didn't know what I didn't know. So, for the first time, I am in year 2, I decided I need to invest in some business coaching and I joined a coaching group much like That's the one that I teach today. And it felt like every time I watched this Coach that she was speaking directly to me, right? Like she knew how I felt. She knew the struggles I was having. And every time she showed up and did a session, I was like, oh, she's talking to me. And I soaked it in. I learned all about social media. I mean, I was on social media, but I didn't have a strategy. I didn't have a plan. I'm just winging it. Remember, I'm just winging it. I don't know what I don't know. I didn't know about algorithms and I didn't know about about, um, you know, certain things that you needed to be doing on social media to grow your business. And so I spent time, I spent time in the group, I dug in, I participated, and, you know, I could do better with my social media. And instantly that started to improve. I learned, I implemented, I learned some more, I implemented some more. And after another 3 months went by I was still declining in subscribers. I was having a hard time here. I thought I was doing so much better on my social media, but something just wasn't connecting for me to grow outside of people that knew me. People that knew me loved what I had to offer. They loved the box. They loved coming into the store. So how could I translate that into the online space? And it took me a while to figure that out. It took me a while to figure out that all I needed to do was show up online the way I would show up when someone walked through my front door. So I want you to think about that for a minute. When someone would walk into my store, I would greet them. I would be excited to see them. I would ask them if they need help. I would, we would talk about their children or what they were doing that day. I had to figure out how to create a relationship with people online the way I created relationships with the customers that were in my store. And that was difficult for me because I didn't want show up on camera. I didn't feel confident in who I was. And so it was really hard for me to bust through my own self-doubts to show up the way I know I needed to, but was really scared to. And so I really just fumbled around for a while this year, and I was starting to panic. I had all this extra inventory in stock because I had planned all this growth. I had a heck of a year, the year before, I had already planned this growth and bought these products. Now I had thousands of dollars sitting on my shelves and I kept wondering, is this ever going to be better than what it is? Is this as good as it gets for me? And is this where— is this the top for me? And could I just accept that and be fine with that? Or should I bust through that? Should, could there be more? Could I do more? And I invested in some more training and I got comfortable being on camera. I would say I wasn't comfortable at this point. Let's, let me, let me back up that I was not comfortable. I forced myself to show up on camera and I invested in some more training for myself, which was really good. It really, it really helped me. I had never spent this much money on training for my business or myself ever before. And here in this year, in year 2, I had joined a coaching program and I took a course. I had never done anything like that before. So now I am investing in myself and I am wondering if it would pay off. I am about halfway through year 2 now. I am starting to show up live. I am starting to put myself out there and trying to connect with people that didn't live in my town. I learned also, as I was doing this training, that I wasn't doing a doing a good job of creating scarcity and urgency. And I wasn't giving people a reason to buy. They had all the opportunity to buy whenever they wanted. I wasn't creating any scarcity or urgency. So I made the decision to close the cart. I was going to close the cart to new subscribers, and it was scary. I was uncertain about it. I'm like, I don't know if I'm doing the right thing, but you know what? I got 60 extra boxes sitting on my shelf and I have to do something. I've got to change this somehow. I went from 300 subscribers down to 240 over this next 6-month period. I was dwindling and I was scared because I had a lot of money invested in these products. And so something had to change. I had to do something different than what I was doing. I had to create scarcity and I had to create urgency. So I mapped out a plan. And I launched a closed cart campaign. And you know what? I just hope for the best. I really just wanted to recoup these 60 subscribers that I had spent 6 months losing. Could I sell the rest of this product that was sitting on my shelf? Could I sell the product I had for this month by closing the cart and creating some scarcity, creating some urgency, creating some FOMO? I don't know, but I'm going to give it a try. Nothing that I have done over the last 6 months was working. So I needed to change. And I want you to listen to that as I'm saying it, especially if you are listening right now and you've hit the plateau. If what you've been doing for a certain period of time is not moving the needle, we've got to shake it up and we've got to change what we're doing. So I launched my cart close campaign and within about 5 days I created so much scarcity so much urgency, so much FOMO, that I ended up with 400 subscribers in just 5 days. I had 400 subscribers. I had 100 more subscribers than I had hoped for. I just wanted to get to that 300 again. I just wanted to get this product sold. So now I'm scrambling to get product to fulfill those extra 100 orders. I figured it all out. It didn't It didn't happen to me, it happened for me. It helped me get past that hump and really push forward to growing my business even more. And so now I'm going into the fall of year 2 and I have a closed cart and it was so much easier. I felt less stress, I felt less worried. I knew what my numbers were going to be. I built in the waitlist. I was filling any cancellations with the waitlist and I planned another launch later that year, and now I got up to 600 subscribers. So from the beginning of year 2 at 300 to dwindling down to 240, closing the cart and ending year 2 with 600 subscribers, it was hard. It was a hard year, but I invested in myself. I invested in learning what I didn't know, and I pushed through my comfort zone. I wasn't comfortable. Being in front of the camera. I knew that I needed to do that to grow, so I pushed myself to do that. I was scared about the possibility of closing my cart and not being available when people wanted to buy. But what happened, what I did was I created this sense of urgency. I gave people a reason to buy. And sometimes we have to do that because— and you guys know you're guilty of it too. When you go back and look at things like, oh, I'll buy that later. Oh, I'll get that later. But if it's not going to be there later, you're going to go buy it now. So we just need to give people a reason to take action now versus later, and then they never do. So I ended up through year 2 on a high note, but I can't say that it was without struggle because I second-guessed everything. I second-guessed my business. I second-guessed who I was. I second-guessed if people liked my product. I went through every range of emotion that year. That a lot of us go through on a regular basis. So I'm no different. I'm no different than you, but I pushed through my fears. I pushed through the things that I knew I needed to work on and I made it happen. And so now I'm going into year 3 with 600 subscribers and year 3 for me was all about really making a great experience for my subscriber. Okay, we're at this point. I have 600 amazing subscribers. How can I uplevel their experience? How can I make this even better for them? And how can I continue to grow? I saw so much growth over the last 2 years. I knew there was more to grow, but how did I get there? This year, year 3, it was 2019. I planned 3 launches for growth. So I had, my cart was closed and I built in 3 launches this year to grow even further. My goal was to get to 1,000 subscribers by the end of 2019. So I started with 600. I knew I needed to gain 400. So I had planned specific numbers during these launches so that I could grow into that 1,000 subscriber mark by the end of the year. You have to have a plan. You cannot just go into these years without a plan of knowing what to do. You have to have a plan so that you can build in the growth. You can't just wake up one day and say, oh, I want 1,000 subscribers by the end of the month. You have to create a plan. And for me, it was a year-long and it felt good and it felt like I could figure things out as I was, as I was going. And we were building in growth and figuring out our processes through that growth too, because the difference between 300 subscribers and 600 subscribers was double our workflow. So we had to figure out our systems and processes to make this easy for us as well. So here I've got my plan together to have 1,000 subscribers by the end of year 3. And little did I know it was going to happen very, very fast. I did a survey at the beginning of this year asking my members several questions about their subscription boxes. What did they like? What didn't they like? What was their favorite items from the past year? What would they like to see more of? I did this survey with their subscriptions and it was unanimous amongst our subscribers that they loved my t-shirts. They love my designs, they love my t-shirts, and they wanted more of them. So in year 3, I launched a second subscription and it grew faster than my first one. I launched out of the gate with over 300 subscribers when I launched the second subscription. And so I, I was tipped into 1,000 subscribers very, very early on into year 3. And in my mind, And I was like, how could such a simple one item of the month— that's what I was doing, one item of the month, my t-shirt club— be the thing that not only put me over 1,000 subscribers, but it put me past 2,000 subscribers that year? Remember, my goal was to hit 1,000. I hit 2,000 this year. I was on to something. Like, I felt like, okay, this is what I needed. I need to listen to my subscribers and just keep giving them more of what they want, not try to sell them something I want, try to give them more of what they want. And this was the first year that my subscription box business made over $1 million in one year. This was the first time that I hit that and it felt amazing. It felt amazing and it was life-changing. It was big-time life-changing. And I don't know if you guys know this from my stories. My stories are out there, but we lived, we lived paycheck to paycheck, my husband and I, our entire adult married life. There was times that I had to ask my mom for grocery money. There was times that she had to help us when our house burnt down and we couldn't afford to replace clothing and, and have food. And even I couldn't even afford to stay in a hotel when my house burnt down. And, and then there was the flooding, the flooding that almost sent us over the edge. My home flooded 8 times in 4 years, and it was just awful. I felt stuck in a mortgage that I would never be able to get out of because of the constant flooding. It just kept flooding and flooding and flooding, and my home kept getting damaged every time it would flood. It was, it was awful. We used the little bit of insurance money that we got to build a retaining wall and our entire life savings to build this retaining wall. We didn't have, have sheetrock. Or flooring in parts of our home for several years when this was happening. But I just told you I hit 2,000 subscribers this year. Things were changing for us. They were changing for my life, for my family's life. I knew that this recurring revenue that I had created would pay two mortgages for as long as it had to. And if I could just get out of my house, Like, I didn't care how long I had to pay that second mortgage for a house that I probably couldn't sell. That was my fear. I could never get out of this house. Um, but we did. We moved into our new house. We spent money fixing up our old house in an attempt to sell it. We sold that house in 14 days. It was a miracle. Um, but I never would have had the opportunity to get out of that situation had I not had I had this steady recurring revenue built in my business that I could count on every single month. It didn't matter how long I had to pay 2 mortgages to get out of that house. I was getting out of that house and I knew I could afford it. I have built this incredible business and it was now life-changing to me. I was hiring more people. We were fulfilling, you know, boxes quicker because I had more hands-on. My marketing budget went up. Like so many things were changing. For my personal life and for the business. Like, things were, things were changing so much for the better. It was so incredible. Year number 3 was so incredible, but I had no idea a pandemic was about to hit. This is the end of 2019. I had no idea what was coming in 2020 and how it was going to affect my business. And here comes 2020. It came in like a wrecking ball. I saw the early effects of COVID in January a lot, and those of you that like source overseas saw that earlier than the rest of the world because it was starting to affect my product supply and my factories in China were shutting down. My product was being delayed. I was in full-blown panic. Of how I was going to get some of my spring boxes out because they were just gone. There was no one returning my messages. We were hearing about what was happening on the news, but we didn't understand it then. We didn't know what exactly was going on, and I didn't know if I was going to be able to figure this out. And I'm the queen of pivot, like I always have Plan B up my sleeve. And so I had to quickly find product domestically. I couldn't get it overseas, but finding 2,000 pieces of something is a lot, especially if it's not being manufactured for you. And so I had to figure out where I was going to get product to fill these boxes until I knew what was happening over on the other side of the world. And I looked at local vendors, I looked at handmade vendors, I had people making me things. I had gone back to some of my vendors that I had used before I grew so much and said, What do you have in stock in this quantity? And I would try to put together a box with what people had in stock. I needed product, I needed a lot of it, and I needed it quickly. And by March, my brick and mortar was shut down. The world was shut down by March, and we were told to shelter in place. And I was terrified. I was worried. How was I going to fulfill my 2,000 subscriptions? Would people start to cancel as they started losing their jobs? Would I be able to pay my employees? I now had to send them home for an indefinite time that I didn't know at that time. Later, it's only 45 days, but I was sending my employees home to shelter in place for an unknown amount of time. Would I be able to continue to pay them? Could we make it through this? I was up at night thinking, am I going to make this through? This was all this hard work to get to this point that I'm at right now. Was it going to end here? Is this how it ends? And I thought to myself, if I could just maintain my subscribers, I could keep my business afloat. I could pay for all my employees no matter if they were working or not. They were sitting at home in shelter in place. I needed to figure out a way that I could just keep my subscribers, because if I could keep that going, I knew that would pay for everything and everything would be fine. I didn't need to sell one more thing other than my subscriptions. And the great thing about this time was I didn't have to show up and sell stuff, right? People are scared, they don't know what's happening, they're losing their jobs, people are dying, and here I didn't have to show up and sell them some cute sweatshirt. Because that felt really off the mark. I already had these customers. They were subscribers. Their payment was going to draft next month whether I showed up and sold something or not. And so there we were figuring out how we were going to pack product for 200 subscribers and pack their boxes and get them out into the world. So everyone went home And we had about a week there that we had, we could figure it out because the boxes had just gone out for March. Now we were getting ready to prep for April and we got sent home. And so what happened over the next several weeks, my, my team started, we would do these pickups. We weren't allowed in our building. We were told we could not be because we were not essential business. So we would sneak in the back door of my brick and mortar and we would fill up our SUVs with t-shirts and product and everybody went home with a job. So everybody went home with 4 or 5 boxes boxes of t-shirts, and we would, we would fold them and sort them and organize them by size, and then we would exchange stuff, and we would pack from home. And this is how this happened over the next month. And we ended up that month, I guess it was April, we delivered our local pickups. We couldn't even do a local pickup. They wouldn't let us do that. I'd reached out to the city to ask if we could do like a drive-by pickup where people could just drive through our parking lot. They said no, we weren't an essential business, and we couldn't do So now we were out delivering on doorsteps all over our county to get these boxes delivered because we didn't know, we didn't know if I could just keep my subscribers, I could keep my business. And so I was going to do whatever it took to keep my subscribers. We went back to the brick and mortar after about 45 days. I had moved everything online over these 45 days. I had a lot of stuff in store that I never had online and I pushed everything online. Okay. I got product and I can sell it and I can bring it home and I can ship ship it. And so business was crazy. Business was crazy. People were at home and they were paying more attention than they ever had before to what we were doing. I was showing up live. I was creating connections. People were buying products for themselves to give as gifts. I was getting more subscribers. And by the end of year number 4, I had pushed to 3 3,000 subscribers during a pandemic. It felt incredible. It felt incredible to know that even when my local store got shut down, it didn't matter. My customers shopped with me online. That was a fear I had for a long time, that I needed that brick and mortar store to have a presence with my local customers because I have an amazing local following. I was worried if I got rid of my store that I would lose my local following, and the opposite happened. More people were shopping with me. And we needed more space. By the end of this year, we had grown out of the little back room we were working in, in the brick and mortar, and I made the decision that we were going to move into a warehouse and we were going to shut down the brick and mortar store. We hit our capacity and we knew that if we were going to continue to grow or even maintain where we're at, it wasn't even about growth anymore. It was about just maintaining this 3,000 subscriber base that we We needed a bigger spot. We shifted, everything went online. The store never felt the same after the pandemic. It never was busy like it was in 2019 or before pre-pandemic. And it was time. It was time. People got used to the convenience of shopping online and we got used to the efficiency of being an online store and we didn't want to go back. We didn't want to go back to having more overhead. More team members to work the store, and we just became so much more efficient and streamlined. The workflow for us as an online store was so much easier and so much better. 2020 showed me how much time I was giving up with my family and how much I wanted that time back. And that was from being there from open to close in my business. That was being there 6 days a week in my business, and I didn't have to do that if I was online. So we ended that year with record sales and a whole lot to be thankful for. Going into year 5, year 5 looked a little different than any of the other years. We were still seeing the major effects of the pandemic and how it was affecting not only our business but the businesses that we were working with, other businesses in my community. We were still dealing with supply shortages. Let's be honest, we're still dealing with that, um, and shipping delays. And it was, it was wreaking havoc on what we were doing. And so we're beginning year number 5 just dealing with a bunch of stuff, a bunch of stuff that feels hard and heavy. And we're just really wondering how it's all going to shake out and when is it going to end. Is it ever going to end? And then comes this big iOS change that jacked up our ads. And it just felt like there was just tons of hurdles being thrown in our way this year. I knew that my team was feeling those effects too. So not only was I more stressed because I'm dealing with a whole bunch of issues throughout this year, but I could feel it from the team too. We didn't have stuff early enough. So we weren't prepped enough. We were just, you know, working extra all the time because we were always always late with something. We were always in a hurry because of shipping delays or product delays or whatever. And then it caused us to be stressed out and we weren't like our normal ready, steady, ready, Eddie selves. We had all this panic in us all the time. And so I made a decision in year number 5 that our goal for 2021 was just to maintain our subscribers. And I know you might think that that's odd not to want growth, but I felt strongly that we needed to settle into the rapid growth that had happened the previous 2 years. And if I kept pushing the envelope, something was going to break. If I kept pushing the limits, something was going to fall apart. If we were going to maintain what we had, could we not launch this entire year and maintain our subscribers? That was my question that I asked myself. Could I remove the stress of a launch off my plate, off my team's plate? Um, so that we could focus on just maintaining and settling in and figuring out what we were going to do. We were struggling to get products. There was not only that, there was a shipping delay. We were having staffing— you know, there's just nationwide staffing shortages everywhere. I was feeling the same way. I needed to hire some more team. I needed more time at home too. I was working like a crazy person again. And I needed that to settle back down. I'd been pushing my limits for the last 2 years with the subscription box, and I was going to break. I was exhausted. I had been dealing with so much stuff. Could we just settle in to our 3,000 subscribers and maintain them for an entire year without having to jump through hoops? And we did. Our year number 5 was about maintaining what we had grown into. And I think that's important to talk about because we always tend to want more and more, but I just needed to settle into what our growth had become. I maintained a 96% retention rate that year, and I was so proud of it. I hired several more team members, virtual staff, warehouse staff. I finally felt like some things were getting off my plate and I was able to leave work work on average around 3 o'clock almost every day. That is a huge win for me. That is a huge win for me. That doesn't mean that I am not at home working in the evening. That doesn't mean that I am not up at 6 o'clock in the morning working. But I was home at 3 o'clock when my kids came home from school and I was there. I was not at my office. I was not at the warehouse. I was at home, even if I had to work some evenings, which I did almost every evening. But I was home and that meant something to me that I could leave the office and go work from home for the rest of the afternoon and be there with my kids. And things started to ease up for me and the team. We started working more efficient. Things were feeling lighter and easier for me. And I think sometimes we have to ask ourselves, when is enough enough? And I know it's hard because we wonder if we can be content with where we're at. It's hard as an entrepreneur because we have this constant drive in us. We have this constant want to achieve the next level. Goal, but at what cost? What, what cost does that come at? Do I want 5,000 subscribers? Do I want 10,000 subscribers? And I don't know the answer to that, but I know that I want to be profitable. And when you look at someone that has 10,000 subscribers, they may not be profitable. Do you understand that? Like, I was watching Shark Tank the other night and this company had made millions of and they were operating at a loss every single month. And to me, those are vanity numbers. If I have 10,000 subscribers and I'm not profitable with my company, those are vanity numbers. I want to be profitable. I want to be profitable at 100 subscribers. I want to be profitable at 300 subscribers. I want to be profitable at 3,000 subscribers. I would rather have 3,000 subscribers, have a great profit margin, making money, paying my employees, and there's equity in the business than to have 10,000 subscribers and just meeting my bills each month. That doesn't even make sense to me. And I don't want that for you. I want to have money in the bank and live a good life. So does that mean I need 10,000 subscribers? No, I'll have 10,000 subscriber headaches. I'll have a bunch more overhead because I'll need a bigger warehouse. I'll have more product issues. If you think I got problems getting 3,000 pieces of something, can you imagine how much issues I'm going to have at 10,000? I'm going to have shipping delays. I'm going to have a huge amount of ad spend to keep and maintain 10,000 subscribers that may eat into all of my profit. I'm not willing to give that up for that vanity number. I'd have more payroll because it's going to take a lot more to manage that. I don't want that. So is, is, is it, is what I have right now enough? That's the question I ask myself. Am I content with where I'm at? And I am because I've built this amazing business that pays me well and employs over 15 people. And that feels like success to me. And so as I start year 6, what does that look like? What does that look like for me? And there's a lot of soul searching involved with where I am now and where I want to be. And I've built in some growth this year, and there's a couple reasons I built in some small growth this year. I'm very comfortable where things are at right now, but I'm working with a brand new manufacturer and they have higher MOQs. That's minimum order quantity. So I need to, I need to increase a little bit so that I can meet all of their MOQs. So that's, that's one goal. And I have hundreds of people that have been on the waitlist trying to get in for months because because we've been maintaining for a whole year. I haven't launched in a whole year. And so I got subscribers that want to get in and I want them to be able to get in. So we've created some small growth this year and I'm completely happy with that. Can I experience growth and maintain my work-life balance? That's the ultimate test of year number 6. Can we build in growth and can I maintain the good work-life balance that I built in last year that's allowed me to go home at 3 o'clock every day? Can I do that? I will keep you posted. I will keep you posted on how year 6 pans out for me, but we are just getting started with it and I am excited about it because you can see along my journey, every year has brought on a different set of wins and a different set of challenges. I have some final thoughts for you about this journey and if you are still listening, but 90% of being an entrepreneur is having grit. Grit, grit is getting up every day and making things happen. Nobody's there to watch you clock in and out, okay? Nobody's over your shoulder. Nobody's there to tell you you're doing a good job. Nobody's there to push you when you don't feel like doing it. You have to push yourself daily. If you have the grit to be an entrepreneur The possibilities for you are endless. I really hope you have enjoyed listening to my journey. I love watching so many of you and just watching your journeys unfold inside our programs. It is amazing. So, I want you to ask yourself, what will you do today that will get you closer to your goal? I want you to ask yourself, what will you do today that will get you closer to your goal? And if you can wake up and ask yourself that every day, you're going to be successful. If the idea of creating a subscription box is swirling around in your head, I encourage you to head over to launchyourboxwithsarah.com, get on our waitlist, and grab some of our free downloads to help you get started. That's launchyourboxwithsarah.com.