Dear Self, We Got This
At Valkyrie, I’m in the business of change. As part of my business, I’ve helped dozens of leaders deliver genuine and often difficult messages to their people: their workforce, customers, followers, naysayers, competitors, investors, and friends. My latest client? Me. In the letter to myself below, Valkyrie Founder and CEO, Nicole Clark (me) shares with her team (me) what’s in store for the coming year after experiencing a challenging quarter.
“And I knew exactly what to do. But in a much more real sense, I had no idea what to do.” ––Michael Scott, Regional Manager, Dunder Mifflin
Hey Niki,
This summer was a bumpy ride at Valkyrie. We might be in the change management business, but it doesn’t mean we always get it right for our business. When we lost the contract with Unicorn Client in June, it exposed vulnerabilities in our business, sending financial and emotional shockwaves through the organization. I have no doubt you felt them. You may have even questioned your future here at Valkyrie. You would not have been alone.
We could have easily taken the L, closed the books on Valkyrie, and joined a Big Consulting company. Instead, we reduced costs, slowed our spending, and used the unexpected time to direct our strategic focus inward, emerging with a clearer vision and kickass business model.
The transformation was impossible without you, Niki. Literally. It required sacrifices on your part—reduced pay, lost sleep, and hits to your self-confidence. It also demanded growth—professionally, spiritually, and creatively. Thank you for recommitting to the work at Valkyrie in remarkable ways.
Having caught our breath, I wanted to share some lessons learned from this experience, and how we plan to pull those lessons forward to shape the future of the company:
We’re getting more baskets and more eggs.
Our pipeline of clients and billable work had narrowed considerably as a result of stagnant – if not altogether nonexistent – marketing and sales strategies. When Unicorn Client pulled their contract with Valkyrie, 80% of our projected FY 2025-26 revenue went with it. To build and maintain a healthy pipeline, we’re designing marketing and sales strategies that bring intention and creativity back to these arms of our business, without over-systematizing the nature of our success to date: meaningful client relationships.
We’re merging with Til Queendom Come.
To date, Valkyrie and our sister company, Til Queendom Come, have operated independently of one another, Valkyrie executing the consultancy business and Til Queendom Come representing a creative brand house of art, prose, and womanist ideation. After an extensive rebrand and reorganization of our talents and resources this summer, we officially brought Til Queendom Come into the Valkyrie fold to head our research and development efforts. The Queendom's approach to creating at the intersection of innovation and failure will fuel our R+D engine and has already informed Valkyrie’s new playformer ideation process.
We’re making time to work on the business, not just in it.
As a company of one, we do it all. Client work, business development, administrative, and HR work. We walk the company dog. We keep the break room stocked with ample amounts of coffee and peanut butter. Client work (and the company dog) was always prioritized over everything else. Naturally, the other areas suffered. Beginning this quarter, we’ll be setting aside one week each quarter to aim our time and energy inward on the business. This might include refreshing our marketing and sales strategies, fine-tuning our project implementation tools, writing Valkyrie Sagas, or simply taking time to read, reflect, and rest. Additionally, we’ll begin holding weekly 1:1s, setting aside time each Sunday for you and I to check in with each other, plan for the week ahead, and mollify the Sunday Scaries.
We’re asking for help.
In June, there was no denying it: The business was anemic and I was burned out. We needed help. Committing to 10 weeks of rigorous work “on the business” with Scott Burkholder and calling on past guidance from leadership coach Natalie Jobity provided the necessary guidance, tools, and guardrails to keep on keepin’ on. Moving forward, we'll proactively ask for help. We’ll re-engage with our strategic coaches in Q2 FY25 to prepare for the following year. Additionally, we encourage you to recommit to mentor relationships to support your professional development and need for community as a solo entrepreneur.
Resilience is often celebrated as a virtue in America, glossing over the dangerous scrapes of living in a dog-eat-dog world. We go through some shit, we come out the other side stronger, and we’re told we’re resilient. But over time, if resilience is an expected attribute to weather relentless change and hardship, it can be used to deflect responsibility, dismiss concerns, set unrealistic expectations, and ultimately lead to burnout.
While I thank you for exhibiting “that great triumph of the human spirit” through this season of change, I know well the dangers of normalizing and consecrating this state of holy hyperactivity. Here at Valkyrie, we do not celebrate resilience, but we respect it. I imagine we’ll need to call on our resilience reserve when the next change is necessary, but that state of operations will be the exception, not the norm.
Instead, I hope this period of refinement allows you to emerge with greater mental and functional agility, compassion, and a gritty sense of humor. If I know you well, and I think I do, I do not doubt that you’ll make like a phoenix and reinvent yourself.
–Nicole