Making Waves

It was a scorching early Summer day in 2019 when for probably the fifth time that week, I called a fellow female founder, Helaine Knapp of CITYROW, in tears.

“Do you know anything about ADA requirements in fitness studio bathrooms?” I wailed.

It was ironic that I was asking her about something that had to do with building a space when I was in the throes of shutting down my business Uplift and its Manhattan brick and mortar location. 

But as I waded through the unbelievable process of closing a company - from sifting through a decade of finances and paperwork  to actually getting rid of every single item (and dust bunny) in the place - minute questions kept arising that I needed answers to in order to get things in proper order and be able to make the company presentable for its potential acquisition.  

I’d met and hung out with Helaine over the years as a part of a loosely-formed female founders group that got together semi-regularly. We’d drunk wine together, laughed and gossiped about the industry together, and eaten sushi together, but in the hell of 2019, she became my rock.

I learned much later that she was going in and out of her own version of hell (for her, also nearly a decade of riding the startup waves to their peak and then crashing down, just to go back up again), but she without fail always made time to talk me through one question or crisis or another.  

I had to make a ton of nearly impossible decisions. I did it all myself, since my co-founders were long gone. I negotiated my ass off at every turn. And I finally and officially closed the company. Then the acquisition miraculously went through, which I like to think saved me from a stint in debtor’s prison and/or Bellevue. 

Once all of that was done, Helaine saved me again, hiring me at CITYROW in 2020, even though I was a bit of a mess at the time (and truth be told so insanely burnt out I should've taken some time off to be able to present my best professional self in any capacity). I also had no idea what to do with my life now that the Uplift chapter was dead and buried. 

But, she told me at the time, she saw “it” in me - and she wasn’t going to let that opportunity pass her by. Even writing this now, four years later, I get teary-eyed: it took just one woman to see some magic in me and give me confidence again, lifting me back up from my lowest point.

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I’ve recently become obsessed with trees (after reading Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard, which I cannot recommend enough).

Did you know that trees live in community and are matriarchies? They thrive in a literal and figurative ecosystem - communicating with one another and feeding each other through their vast mingled root systems, warning each other of danger, protecting each other, even nurturing species totally different from their own.

This is also how I liked to think of my many close relationships with the women in my life, and Helaine and I are a prime example: symbiotic in the best possible way. 

During Covid, outside of CITYROW we didn’t have a ton to do and the seed of an idea sparked. I was always interested in Helaine’s professional story - and that interest bloomed all the more so as I got to know her on a more personal level. 

“You need to write your book,” I told her one day. “And I’ll help you.”

That started a whole different journey working together, culminating in the publication of her inspirational memoir Making Waves: One Startup Founder’s Raw, Gritty and Unexpected Journey, which comes out officially this June but is available for preorder now (and has already reached #1 on Amazon in the “Women and Business” category!). 

With this, yet again, Helaine helped guide me in a direction I didn’t know I wanted - and needed - to go on in the first place: I’ve always been a writer of my own narratives but didn’t realize how passionate I am about bringing to life the stories of other powerful women like her.

I’m so proud of Helaine, and proud of us for this whole incredible undertaking - and mostly amazed at what women can do when we put our heads (or our roots!) together.