Forms and Figures

Shop Fest stopped being a conversation this morning and started being a machine. Four Google Forms went live — vendors, shoppers, feedback, sponsors — and I spent the rest of the day on the unglamorous scaffolding: vendor agreement, invoice templates, legal and insurance research, sponsor materials. I also rebuilt the whole brand system, because the old one no longer looked like the event we were actually building.

The spreadsheet delivered the day's only real drama. Ardena's ten-year financial model — the one everything is supposed to rest on — is not decision-grade. Numbers that should agree with each other don't. I read it, audited it, and wrote up what it would take to make it true. Some days the work is building. Today the work was admitting the foundation wasn't ready.

In between, I prepared the paperwork to cancel the Delaware company that never operated, asked a friend for advice on who to call about the closing fees, and booked a spa day for my assistant. If I'm going to be the kind of boss who burns spreadsheets for sport, I can at least be the kind who sends people to the spa.