2022: The Year of Lessons + Challenges
I hope you had a wonderful holiday and are enjoying some down time this week before ringing in the New Year!
I usually look forward to putting together the end of the year letter because it’s a nice time to reflect on all the things we accomplished at Drift. I'm gonna be honest, this year has been a bit difficult to revisit.
2022 has been a year of personal loss.
There have been some amazing moments sprinkled in, but some days it's been really hard for me to show up and put one foot in front of the other.
I've been through a lot with my own health and body this year. This is the first time I'm putting this out there into the world, which feels extremely vulnerable… we lost 2 pregnancies this year. And after a surgery and a cancer scare, it has been a lot to process.
Also, as you may know, we said goodbye to our sweet dog, Maci, of 13 years in October. She was truly the light of our life and our greatest gift. She had been with us when we got married, moved from Florida to Texas 11 years ago, and when we bought our home. Losing her been one of the hardest things I’ve ever been through. It's up there with the loss of close family members.
I know this all is extremely heavy. The silver lining is that this year I've learned so much about myself and my business in these hard times. And have gained so much perspective on life in general.
A happy dance moment: This year, Drift celebrated 5 years in business!
Did you know nearly 50% of small businesses fail in their first 5 years?! When I started my business I knew that statistic. And despite it, I believed and went all in for it because I knew deep down it could succeed. Here we are today, still kicking it! I am so grateful we beat the odds.
With Drift, this hasn’t been an easy year either. Other years in business seemed to flow so effortlessly. Of course running a business is hard work, but I've always followed the same recipe and it has served me — you make a game plan, you stick to it consistently, the results follow.
A hard realization for me this year was that what has worked in the past won't necessary keep working in the future.
As you may know, I started this shop and much of its growth and success has been because of Instagram. Social media has changed so much over the years, and we’ve had to come up with new ways to connect with you all.
We started doing in person pop up events this fall. And also, I recently started a TikTok account to show some behind the scenes of my design biz and rug shop (with the help of Trysten of course, because I'm still pretty clueless with it, haha).
If I’m being totally transparent, shop sales still haven’t rebounded from where they were pre-pandemic. I know making a rug purchase is a big one, especially when inflation is at an all time high and there is so much economic uncertainty. So it's to be expected. Despite hearing the R-word (recession) being dropped a lot, I'm staying optimistic that this upcoming year will be better than this one!
Since 2020, I have watched things slowly shift. I’ve had to make some decisions to pivot my business as a result. Change is never easy, but I’m excited for what 2023 holds. There’s going to be some MAJOR news coming here in the next few weeks and although it’s scary, it’s very exciting at the same time.
One of the bright spots this past year was our trip to Morocco back in late May/early June. I brought Trysten along this trip, so she could see where the rugs were made and why they are so dang cool. It's always such a joy seeing Morocco through someone else’s eyes who is visiting for the first time.
It was encouraging to see everything in Marrakech opened back up fully. It makes me hopeful that we'll get back to organizing and planning group trips this upcoming year once again!
Lastly, my favorite news to announce is the impact we were able to make by giving back! We made the yearly donation of over $2,000 to Project Soar! Thank you to everyone who made a purchase and contributed to this total!
If you’ve made it this far, thanks so much for reading and being here as always! I hope this note finds you well. I appreciate your support year after year. Looking forward to filling you in soon on all the amazing things we have in the works.