I Never Meant To Start A Business

From Layoff to LLC: The Real Behind the Scenes of Building a Business in Motherhood

I never planned to start a business.

I want to lead with that — because I think so much of what we see online about entrepreneurship is wrapped in this narrative of vision and intention and strategy. The woman who always knew. The one who had the plan. And I just... wasn't that.

What I had was an entrepreneurial spirit with no roadmap. A career I loved, a season that shifted, an unexpected push — and a whole lot of figuring it out in real time. And honestly? That's still where I am. Which is exactly why I felt like it was time to talk about it.

The Career I Built — And Why I Walked Away

For the first chapter of my professional life, I worked in nonprofit fundraising. And I loved it. It was fast, it was people-forward, it was constantly moving — events and networking and connection and the shared belief that we could do something good in the world. I was built for it.

And then COVID hit.

And the world of nonprofit changed. And something else was changing too — I was engaged, planning a wedding, thinking about family, imagining what our life was going to look like. And somewhere in that season, I realized something quietly but clearly: I could not sustain that level of high-energy, all-in career and also be all-in on the family I was building.

So I made a pivot. I moved into project management at a large health system, working with a behavioral health business development team. And it turned out to be exactly what I needed — not forever, but for that season. For the first time in a long time, I clocked in, did meaningful work, and clocked out. I got married. I got pregnant. We bought our first house. And in the margins of all of that, I started the Mama Making Podcast.

That balance — structured job by day, passion project by night — was everything. It gave me space to grow without the pressure of it being everything. And I didn't realize how much I needed that until I was living it.

The Layoff That Changed Everything

Here's where it gets interesting.

By the time I was nearing the end of that chapter, I was feeling restless. Motherhood had cracked me open in ways I hadn't anticipated. I'd sit at my desk some mornings thinking — I sent my son to my mom's for this. For emails. For meetings I could do in my sleep. The work was good. The team was incredible. But something in me was starting to ask for more.

And then, before I ever had to make the decision myself, the decision was made for me. My boss and I were both part of a round of layoffs at the health system.

I want to be honest about what that felt like — because even though part of me had been quietly restless, it was still jarring. There is a difference between choosing to leave something and being let go. Between deciding your own next chapter and having it decided for you. Both can lead to the same place, but they feel nothing alike in the moment.

What I know now — and what my incredible former teammates said to me then — is that I would have never left on my own. I loved that team too much. The layoff was the push I didn't know I needed.

And with a severance package that gave me some breathing room, and a husband who had worked alongside me to build a life where I actually had options, I had something I hadn't had before: space to decide what was next.

The Accidental Business

I tried stay-at-home mom life for about two weeks. It is a full-time job and we should absolutely be paid for it — and it was not for me.

So I started doing what felt natural: reaching out to people I'd worked with, letting them know I was available for freelance projects. Digital marketing, social media, print work, whatever they needed. Just something to bring in income while I figured out what came next.

And then I filed for an LLC. Mostly just to formalize things, protect myself, make it official. It didn't feel like a big deal. It felt like a practical step.

The month after I filed, I contracted with my biggest client to date.

That's when something shifted. Not dramatically, not all at once — but I remember the feeling clearly. Oh. Maybe I can actually do this.

Around the same time, I started building Collabs Creative alongside my collaborator and dear friend Maria, who I had worked with years before at a nonprofit. We'd continued doing freelance projects together in the years since, and when it came time to build something more intentional, she was there. Naming it, shaping it, focusing on small business owners because that's the world we understood — it was a team effort from the start. And I genuinely don't know what I would have done without her.

From Freelance Mindset to Business Owner Mindset

What I didn't expect was how quickly things would grow — or how unprepared I would feel when they did.

I went from "let me take a couple of clients and see what happens" to suddenly managing a growing roster, figuring out onboarding processes and billing practices, hiring a VA, bringing on a team member for a specific client, paying Maria more to help build the business, and now onboarding an intern.

None of that was the plan. There was no plan. I was — and honestly still am — figuring it out in real time, building systems as problems arise, solving things as they come up. The scrappy ADHD mentality of just making it work has served me surprisingly well. But somewhere in the middle of all of it, I looked up and realized: I'm not freelancing anymore. I'm running a business. And it's growing.

And that realization — that I had crossed a line I didn't see myself crossing — brought with it a whole new kind of overwhelm.

The Messy Middle of an Entrepreneurial Growth Phase

I want to talk about this part honestly. Because I don't think we do enough of that.

Social media is full of the wins. The six-figure months. The client roster milestones. The "I finally did it" posts. And I am genuinely cheering for every woman who is building something and sharing that. But it can create this distorted picture of what entrepreneurship looks like — one where everyone seems to have a roadmap except you.

Right now, I am in a growth phase. And saying that feels both exciting and completely terrifying. Because a growth phase, at least from the inside, doesn't always look like growth. It looks like a to-do list that never gets shorter. It looks like feeling like you're failing at everything — the business, the motherhood, the marriage, the basic human stuff. It looks like getting to the end of a day and not being able to name a single thing you did well.

I had a therapy session this week that kind of broke me open in the best way. I was spiraling — what am I doing, why am I doing this, is any of it actually working — and my therapist said something simple that I needed to hear:

You are doing three enormously involved things simultaneously. You are raising a family. You are building a business with no prior experience and no blueprint. And you are pouring your heart into a podcast. Most people only do one of those things at a time.

I needed someone to say that out loud. Because when you're in it, you can't see the size of what you're carrying. You just feel the weight of it.

The First Year of Motherhood Parallel

Here's the comparison that has been helping me through this season: the entrepreneurial growth phase feels exactly like the first year of motherhood.

You're in survival mode. You're learning everything for the first time. You finally feel like you have a handle on it — and then something shifts, a new milestone hits, a regression arrives, and you're starting over again. There's no manual. There's no roadmap. There's just you, figuring it out one day at a time, trusting that this part is temporary.

And the thing about the first year of motherhood is — you survived it. You came out the other side. You found your footing, even when you couldn't imagine you would.

I've done hard things before. I've come through the other side of seasons that felt impossible. And that knowing — that this is temporary, that I've done it before, that I can do it again — is what I'm holding onto right now.

Choosing Alignment Over the Highlight Reel

What I keep coming back to is this: the only thing I know how to do — the only thing that has ever actually served me — is trust my gut.

Every time I've ignored it, things have shown for that. Every time I've leaned into what felt right and natural, doors have opened in ways I couldn't have predicted. The clients who found me by word of mouth. The podcast conversations that changed my perspective. The collaborators who showed up exactly when I needed them.

I'm not saying there's no strategy involved — there absolutely is. But the foundation of all of it has been alignment. Doing what feels true. Moving toward what feels like mine. And letting the rest follow.

That's what I'm committing to this year. Not the hustle. Not the highlight reel. Alignment. Authenticity. Trusting what's already in me.

What's Coming Next

This next season of the Mama Making Podcast is going to be intentional in a way I'm really excited about. We're focusing on women making impact — and I want to be clear about what that means. Impact doesn't have to be national or global or viral. It can be within your family, your friend group, your neighborhood, your community. The impact women create every single day is powerful and culture-shifting, and I want to keep putting a spotlight on it.

If you're not on the newsletter yet, I'd love for you to join us at themamamakingpodcast.com. And if this episode resonated with you — if you're in the messy middle of building something and needed to hear that you're not alone — please share it with someone else who needs it too.

We are all figuring this out together. And I think that's exactly the point.