by Michael Evans
It’s Michael, here.
Today… I have a personal message for y’all.
It’s been just over a year since Ream launched to the public. I could celebrate by sharing with you some milestones we reached, a list of features we launched, or just a heartfelt thank you.
Instead, I want to share with you the hard, messy parts about running Ream. This is all from my perspective as Ream’s CEO and I probably get more vulnerable than I should in this email.
In truth, I’m so tired of the vanilla corporate messages and platitudes that permeate every era of modern society.
Ream is made by fiction authors for fiction authors to create a place where Storytellers Rule the World.
So it’s time for me to share Ream’s story. Or more accurately… my personal story over the last year.
Just a day in the life when I look tired…which is most days.
Looking Back
I’m writing this email to you on the second day of the Subscriptions for Authors Virtual Summit. It’s 12 days after Ream’s birthday (May 7) and 4 days before I officially graduate from college.
Next week will be my first week at Ream officially “full time”. Humbling and mind-blowing after spending nearly every second on Ream for the last two years. We now have a team approaching double digits and we are helping put food on the table for many authors and members of the team who call Ream their full-time job.
Really weird feeling as I prepare to graduate and move back home with my mom (entrepreneurs gotta be scrappy!).
If I look back two years ago, this has all been the best journey of my life and far more fun and enriching than I could have imagined.
But there have been some tough moments.
So let me chronicle them and the lessons I personally learned over the last year or so since Ream has gone from beta to public launch to just about 10,000 authors globally using the platform.
And as a side note, if you want to hear the founding story of Ream, check out this article I wrote here and this article here.
The Taylor Swift bench!
The Big Break Up
It was second semester of my junior year of college. I was drowning in a heavy course load and getting Ream off the ground in its early days. Understandably, I didn’t have much free time.
I had been dating someone for a little over 2 years at that point. She was my first real love and someone who meant a ton to me.
For months problems kept coming up with me not being present in the relationship, worried about payment systems… bugs… support tickets… a never ending list.
Finally, we broke up. And it broke my heart.
It was truly the weirdest feeling to be launching Ream and watching the culmination of what was the last 6 years of my life up to that point of an undying passion for technology and storytelling come to life.
And then also watch a relationship I loved and adored fade away.
I learned a few things from this, but mostly how to get over a heartbreak (if only there was a pill for that… sounds like a sci-fi romance novel) 😂.
If it wasn’t for my undying passion and belief in Ream, I’m not sure I would have the same fire that I do today for our mission.
But the truth is… Ream is everything I’ve ever wanted. And although you have to let some things go in your life (still have a ton of respect for her), and it can be really challenging… I’ve never been happier than I am today.
Lesson: Ice cream and giving love to a community you care about can give you the fuel to get through great loss. Community + Sweets are my solutions to most problems (just kidding, well kind of).
In the airport on the way to an author conference.
Finding Out My Brain Works “Weird”
What a time was the summer and fall of 2023.
This was the stage of the platform where outside of engineer and product, I was doing most of the things. Answering 90%+ of the support tickets (100+ came in each month at the time, now that number is nearly 1,000). Doing the community management, operations work, sales… it was a lot!
But the real issue… was that I kept putting things off. I would ignore emails for 1 – 2 days to focus all in on sales. Or ignore the Facebook Group to focus on content production or coaching authors in the Academy.
You get the idea… balancing everything… was very hard.
It was pressure, fires, and deadlines that motivated me. Fun to try and keep up with, but not a recipe for long-term success.
Around the same time my brother, who had struggled in school, started to learn that his brain works differently. Many use the word neurodivergent. I prefer not to use labels.
What I do know… is that everything he was uncovering about himself… is exactly how I felt too.
I struggled to feel good enough. Always wanting to over deliver to the point I had nothing left.
I never estimated correctly how long things would take me, often spending all nighters to get out projects before launch deadlines that I promised publicly because the pressure of a public deadline fueled me.
The list goes on and on.
I read a few books about “Hunters” or ADHD. I talked to my therapist. And I gained a new awareness about myself.
It changed my life.
I realized something.
The same strengths that I had to launch Ream with Emilia and Sean also had some downsides that would hurt our company in the long run.
The answer was NOT to change myself. It was to embrace what makes me special, throw me in my corner where I can do my creative, visionary thing… and bring on a team that can balance me out.
So… we started to hire a team. A real team of badass people who have changed my life.
It took time but if I had waited 6 months or even a year, we would have started to get really behind as we saw my strengths eat us alive.
Lesson: Don’t change who you are. Who you are is what makes you beautiful. But as you gain an awareness of your strengths, as you grow a company or author business, make sure you surround yourself with people who can balance you out. Businesses need to be balanced to be sustainable in the long term. As an individual… you just need to be YOU.
As a P.S.
If you ever see me say something and go “wow” he’s going to get ALL of that done in that short period of time… know that’s my superpower. When the email is sent out I usually don’t know how I will fit it all in, but that motivates me. Suffice it to say… I’m in my happy place when I get to chase new opportunities for Ream and launch things to make your life better as authors. BUT companies are run on much more than that. Hence… the balance :).
Italy! Crazy time of learning amidst beautiful views.
3 Full Time Jobs???
This was scary. Right around the middle of fall, I was working constant 100 hour weeks. Traveling literally 3/4 weeks to go to conferences, try and scrape by in school, and then do everything to run Ream (although we started making some hires, folks were mostly part-time at this stage and we were still training people up).
Everyday I was exhausted, stressed, and unbelievably behind.
I knew that the equation didn’t add up.
But… I kept thinking… soon… it will get easier.
Eventually, Ream will “blow” up. We will launch that feature that goes viral… that takes us to the next level.
I was looking for a relief from the stress. This was all while we had mounting competition, multiple acquisition offers, investment offers… everyone staring at me telling me… there’s an easy way out.
I thought when the semester ends… at least it will get a little easier.
But it didn’t.
January started… and it got SO much harder.
We were launching our biggest feature yet — Discovery 1.0.
I was spending a few weeks in Italy with a group of entrepreneurs from Harvard, Stanford, and MIT. It was intense. We were all trying to push our businesses to the next level and I was making some of the best friends of my life but also realizing that even with just Ream (no travel and no school) I was still unable to keep up.
I hadn’t responded to admin emails for the company in months, fully locked in on pushing forward the day to day initiatives.
I was behind on conference talks and workshops I was supposed to be delivering in other writing communities.
It felt like a disaster.
And the devil’s bargain loomed.
I remember a distinct moment at a rooftop restaurant in Rome.
The burgers there were 50 euros, a disgusting rip-off. But I wasn’t the one paying.
I was told that I could be a “generational” founder. Start something “massive”. And that books weren’t “big” enough.
Just take the investor money… and go for the moonshot.
I was at the top of the mountain. The darkness on my shoulder looking out over the city saying “you can have this all, if you just listen to me”.
The thing is, I don’t want what they were giving me.
I never cared about a quick exit. An easy way out. Or selling my soul for a “bigger” impact.
In reality, I love authors, I love books, and I just want to help OUR community.
So we moved on.
You saw me write a bunch of fiery emails like “Operation Storytellers Rule the World” and we recommitted to the big 10 year vision to change publishing for the better, to do it as a community (no outside investors), and to do it with our values first and foremost (Storytellers Rule the World, Readers First, Community is King, Character Triumphs, and First Drafts are Better Than No Drafts).
In short, 50 euro burgers are freaking stupid.
Just give me a story and I’m happy.
When I die, I don’t want a number to define me.
I want the stories I created to define me.
Ream is the story we are creating.
Let’s make it freaking epic. No short-term thinking. No sell-outs. No short-cuts.
I’ll leave that to everyone else.
We are creating a place where Storytellers Rule the World. Nothing else matters. That story… is what gives me meaning. It’s what gives our team meaning. It’s what gives Ream life. And we have to stick true to that story — no matter how hard it is. No matter how long it takes.
I’ve got time 😊.
Lesson: Building anything worthwhile likely takes 3 times longer than you think and is 3 times harder. But the journey and the process is 10x better than I could have ever imagined.
Meet-up at author conference in Ireland.
Drowning, Stress, and the Breaking Point
Yeah all of that is super cute, but you are still drowning dude.
The stress was getting to the point that I was having regular digestive issues.
I may have committed to a process and our values and to take no easy way outs.
But I knew what was coming if something drastic didn’t change.
Burn out. Getting behind the growth curve. And ultimately stagnation and further health problems for me personally.
That was not an option.
So what do I do?
First… be open about it.
Realize the issue and realize that there won’t be any magical growth savior coming to solve our problems.
I needed to buckle down and do it ourselves.
That meant focusing on what really matters and cutting out the fat from my days. That meant developing better processes.
And ultimately, it means one BIG thing. Taking the big bet on building out a real team months and months earlier than I would have ever imagined.
Lesson: If something feels broken, recognize it, confront it, and do everything you can to fix it. It won’t happen overnight, but taking one step forward each day can change everything. We’ve taken one step forward each day for the last 3 months and my life and the Ream platform is infinitely better. And… we’re just getting started.
Second day of the Subscriptions for Authors Summit in Boston, May 7, 2024.
Bet on People First, People Always
People are everything. Culture is what glues us together. Stories are what give us meaning and make life worthwhile.
I finally realized the way to truly eliminate the thing holding Ream back — me — was to really bring on the team. Not just full-time, but bring on a team for our marketing, community, and operations that is working full-time.
This wasn’t easy. I was still in class — managing a full-time team while in school was not something I ever imagined doing. But we were lucky enough that the platform had grown enough to make it possible to grow the team outside of our engineering and product.
To build the full foundations of the company.
So I asked everyone to quit their jobs in two weeks and join Ream full-time in March.
Holy moly… that was scary. Growing up, my dad was a gambling addict. My family went bankrupt and parents divorced. I never wanted anyone who depended on me to have what happened to my family growing up.
In short, I really really wanted to make sure everyone was taken care of. That everyone had what they needed to be okay.
I’m happy to say it’s all worked out better than I could have ever imagined, and we are already starting to see everything accelerate as a result of bringing the team on to help me.
I am no longer Ream’s biggest bottleneck.
I finally took my first real day off in two years last week (sad to say, I haven’t even taken a weekend day off until last week).
And I am having the time of my life sharing this adventure with some of the most loving and talented folks out there.
Bobbie who handles ALL of our support at Ream and is an absolute rockstar coming from nearly two decades of experience in support for online marketplaces.
Patrick who is leading our initiatives for top authors on Ream and crushing it.
Anna who led the Subscriptions for Authors Summit and now runs the Facebook Groups and Community. She’s a rockstar.
Renata who produces our content at Ream and will be helping us take ALL of our content to the next level this summer (finally branching out beyond the podcast to YouTube videos, TikToks, and more).
Arielle, who leads the Academy, and is my right-hand person and executive assistant at Ream. She’s really more like our Chief of Staff, and is my personal superpower (when you have poor executive functioning as a weirdo-brained folk, you need someone to balance you out!).
And that doesn’t even count Erika, who will be taking our virtual summits and creating more summits to bring the community together — and Stephanie who is going to take over at the Academy and continue the awesomeness.
This is just our team on the front-facing side of Ream, not the folks who build and engineer the platform to keep making things special for you. But in many ways this is “my team”. The people who took all the things I did at Ream and are doing far more and better than I ever could.
So now I can focus on being CEO. Focus on the vision. And focus on what I love and enjoy.
That’s special.
We are lucky. And I couldn’t be more grateful for you all making this happen.
We pour everything back into the future. And boy… is it going to be special.
Lesson: People are magic. Bet on the people you love and care about everyday. Give them your heart, and they may just give theirs too. Our super power is caring. If you care, surround yourself with people who share that passion.
Some of the Ream Team at the Subscriptions for Authors Summit in Boston. L-R: Arielle, Anna, Michael, Renata (in front of Michael), Emilia Rose (Chief of Growth at Ream), Sean Patnode (Ream’s Chief Technical Officer).
In Conclusion
So here are some lessons.
A little chronicle of what’s happened behind the scenes of Ream.
I feel like I barely scratched the surface. Truth be told, I could write a book about this.
But for now… I think we may have a new yearly tradition. I do the quarterly reports where I talk about Ream and what’s coming.
But once a year, I’ll peel back the curtain and share with you all how I’m doing and what I’ve learned in the process.
So how are you doing? And how can we help you? This isn’t a trivial question. I’d love to hear from you and how your past year has been. And we will respond to all of you.
We are at the beginning of something special. And it’s unbelievable to see the team come together and know that wow… we are just getting started.
The best is yet to come.
And as always…
Storytellers Rule the World,
Michael and the Ream Team