If you can believe it… we’re six months into 2024! As I reflect upon the past half to the year, I am really proud of all the milestones Anact has experienced.
From launching on Grove Collaborative to hosting our first SXSW activation on International Women’s Day to collaborating with the Texas Ranchers to create a custom hemp sweat towel to being nominated for the sustainability category for Austin Under 40 and much more.
The pieces you don’t see or hear is the work that goes in each day to make each moment happen. The unsexy day to day grind to ensure product is delivered and in stock. The development of new sales channels and opportunities. The brainstorming between different groups and teams to bring an event to life. The reviewing of monthly P&Ls and balance sheets against our budget and forecast for the year. I could go on and on.
The reason why I am sharing the above is because I’ve realized that work never really stops. I’ve been learning as a business owner that you have to decide when to pause and step back and breathe because no one else will.
When Jan 1st, 2024 kicked off, I knew there were going to be a lot of growing pains and milestones for Anact so I made a promise to myself. I promised myself that I would carve out one month to take a break and write about the journey so that I could have something to look forward to personally. A treat for my brain so to speak.
It was scary to make this commitment to myself but I think my mental health would be in a scarier state if I didn’t. So here I am, going into week two of quietly running Anact while writing, walking, swimming, and making time for myself.
Several things that have popped up are 1) pausing on the blog that I created to instead focus on writing a piece of work that shares the journey in a more robust way 2) partnering with a media entity to share my thoughts as a socially conscious founder via their platform (more to come) and 3) starting to transition away from doing it all to hiring a team that can do aspects of the business better than me while we work towards executing the Anact vision.
As I look towards the horizon of the next six months of 2024, I couldn’t be more excited about upcoming product launches, events, collaborations, new sales channels, and the sharing of innovative hemp supply chains. Until then, we will be pausing and taking a little bit of a breather this summer (but will continue share Anact updates as needed) while we amp up for the next iteration of Anact!
Cheers to simple acts!