2025 Is Dead
Long Live 2025
Last year I hired someone else to be CEO of the company I built. My mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. I turned 43. Erin and I used every vacation day visiting family.
2025 was a year of recalibration.
I don’t typically do New Year’s resolutions. If something needs to change, change it on a random Tuesday. But there’s something about the turn from one year to the next that creates space for reflection. Maybe it’s the quiet week between Christmas and New Year’s when most people are offline. Maybe it’s just having cultural permission to look backward and forward simultaneously.
Either way, I’ve been running the numbers on 2025.
The Year In Review
Thirteen years building Yellowbird led to the realization that I wasn’t the right person to lead it past $20M in revenue. That inflection point requires different skills than I naturally possess—financial discipline, process design, organizational management. I hired someone who’s better at those things than I am.
We transitioned through one of the busiest Q4s in company history. It was tough but we came through it and we’re building a better company than ever.
My parents are getting older. Erin’s mom retired. We spent our vacation time being present with family instead of going to beaches or exploring new cities. That felt appropriate given where everyone is in life.
I did a lot of personal writing about who I am outside of being CEO. Fortunately, I like that person.
What I Started Creating
I baked a lot of sourdough bread in 2025. I started making actual sauces again—you know, the thing that made me want to start a sauce company in the first place. I launched two Substacks and two podcasts because I wanted to create things that weren’t expense reports and quarterly board decks.
There’s a specific joy in making things that don’t need to scale or monetize or fit into anyone’s strategic plan.
When I was 29, I spent $25,000 making a music album. You can listen to it here if you want. I’m far enough removed that I can say it’s a fantastic album without feeling overly self-promotional. That money in an S&P 500 index fund would be worth about $180,000 today. I recorded it in a proper studio with horn players and gospel singers and an excellent producer who kept trying to make it more commercially viable.
I took his notes that made it better. I ignored the ones about making it profitable.
The album exists exactly how I wanted it to exist. Uncompromised. The money’s gone but the thing I made is still here, and that exchange was worth it to me.
Yellowbird started the same way. Erin and I made what we wanted to make without diluting it or chasing trends. We built something that felt true to us and then figured out how to share it with people who cared about the same things.
That’s what creation actually is when you’re doing it right. You’re not optimizing for market share. You’re putting paint on canvas because you need to see what happens when you do.
Looking At 2026
I’m creating again in ways that feel meaningful. Working on Yellowbird in the areas where I’m actually valuable—innovation, brand building—while someone better equipped handles the complexity of running a $20M+ company. Making things outside the business that matter to me regardless of whether they generate revenue.
This newsletter is one of those things. Gross To Net is now a podcast with fifty episodes planned for 2026. One released every Monday morning. Conversations with excellent humans about what they’re actually optimizing for and what it costs them to get there.
Most of the world optimizes for growth and attention. Those things have their place. But they’re not the only metrics that matter, and past a certain point they’re not even the most important ones.
I’m 43 with shifting family dynamics and a business that’s outgrown needing me in the CEO seat. The year ahead is about making things that don’t need to be anything other than what they are.
So here’s to 2026. Make things that matter to you. Spend your time on what’s actually important. Be honest about what you’re optimizing for and what it costs.
Do the real accounting.
Happy New Year.