this hill to die on
It took me all year to find the words to realise this next step. Isn’t it funny that it is today, 23rd December 2023, that the specks of doubt and fear and hope against hope have finally settled? 10 years ago, on 23rd December 2013, I registered Public Culture as an official business, ready to start the new year with a new career. 10 years on, the weight inside has lifted enough for me to say: this new year will be our final year of business.
I am finally able to walk away because I look at the business and know there is nothing more I can do for it. There is nothing else I can compromise on to make this worth it. There is no more joy in running a team. There is no commercial demand for the type of work that we want to be paid for, and no fucks left to give for the work that people actually want to pay for. The older I get, the more I ask myself: was this what I had planned for the future? Is this work I want to do? Who am I outside of this business?
I announced the timeline of the closure to the team on Monday, and all week I have cycled through insouciance, excitement, and complete terror for the future. For my future, really, because my future has never been independent of this business until now. I was running on adrenaline until I looked at the date and saw the number 23. Now here I am, a sentimental, weeping mess of a person, wondering what’s the bigger waste here: walking away from 10 years of hard work, or working this hard for 10 years and still not knowing what it is exactly I have to give in this world.
But I am so proud of myself. I have to at least get that down on paper. Tina and I started this with $1,000 each. I grew the team, made payroll every month, drew up policies and systems. I was shit at paperwork but kept at it anyway. I learned how to read and revise contracts to better protect us. I learned how to streamline proposals because I was tired of giving away ideas for free. I kept accounts every month for every year. As we grew, I drew up more policies to better protect our downtime. I took 2 clients to court, won both cases and still never got paid. I walked away from money when we were disrespected. Walked away from money when it cost us peace of mind. Walked away from money even when we had everything to lose.
Because I’ve always believed that if you want to run your own business, you must remember the privilege of running it on your own terms. Sidestep what you don’t like about industry practices. Break convention. Set a different standard. For the most part, I think we’ve achieved that in our little world. It wasn’t always perfect, but I sleep knowing we’re not complicit in bureaucratic bullshit. That’s what I’m proudest of — not the work done, but how we’ve done it on our own terms. We never lost sight of who we are in this capitalist rat race of bigger, better, faster, shinier. We always dug deep and held fast to values and instinct: people over profit, purpose over profit. That’s the reason why we never did big jobs — and probably why we were never able to scale — I wanted our work to make a difference to the lone entrepreneur out there trying to realise her dream, not help some big business grow even bigger.
How many people can say the same?
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I came across a beautiful epitaph recently. “We were girls together,” the inscription reads, as a dedication from one best friend to another. And this is how I feel about the last 10 years. The girls, all of them coming into Public Culture fresh-faced with youthful idealism. That was once me, filled with fervour and ambition and a desire to exist in this world on my own terms. This is what has powered us for a decade.
So today, I mark 10 years of a stubborn, guileless, highly opinionated way of learning adulthood. I celebrate the audacity to daydream a little and the drive to work even more. I remember the days of showing up for each other, the times we failed, then tried again. For everything it was not, Public Culture was at least a safe space for us. Now it is time to reach for something new, but please may I never ever forget: it was here, for 10 years, that we were girls together.
