Our COVID-19 Pivot: Accepting reality, making a plan, and taking action
The image you see above was taken last August in Cape Coast, Ghana, shortly after visiting the historic slave castles. It was a long and heavy day for us both, as one can imagine. Our experience at the castle left us with a lot on our minds.
After much reflection, we found ourselves in a deep discussion surrounding purpose—chatting about what the future had in store for us both, and what the brand we created could achieve if it reached its full potential.
Part of reaching your full potential as a brand means going all in. In 2019, we both decided to leave our comfortable, full-time tech jobs to bet on ourselves and chase high-risk entrepreneurship.
We felt it was the right time and had been discussing it for a while, waiting for the right moment to take the leap. Our business was scaling; our audience was growing; we were consistently exhibiting successful events; and we had full confidence in our future vision.
The expected and unexpected
Like most businesses—especially small businesses—we deal with varying levels of unexpected challenges and bumps in the road. Toasted Life is no exception, we’ve certainly had our share. Behind the curtain, we’ve learned some hard lessons from betting on the wrong events and losing money, poor planning and execution, unsatisfied customers, and much much more––all obstacles we’ve overcome.
Those are challenges we expected to face. We haven’t always won, but we have always strived to be better. No one expected a global pandemic, but here we are.
We first started hearing about the global spread of COVID-19 in early January. The signs of how devastating this virus could be were all there. As time passed and the virus spread more rapidly, we began to see its uprooting impacts in all aspects of life—the stock market began to tank; companies started laying off employees; and worse of all, people were and are dying.
Trying our best to process everything we were seeing and hearing, we held our breath and braced ourselves for what could happen next. Then there it was: news headlines reporting that public events are being banned and prohibited from state to state.
We agree with the necessity of these restrictions; however, restricting public events means that what we do as a business (produce events and experiences) is now banned by law until further notice. These decisions by the government were unquestionably the right ones, but what does this mean to businesses that rely on social gatherings?
As you can imagine, this left us with a ton of questions personally and professionally. We weren’t working for tech companies anymore—that would at least continue to pay the bills. Thoughts flooded in fast. We doubted ourselves. Did we leave our jobs too soon? Are we prepared and able to withstand this? This pandemic could mean lights off for our business, unless we act fast.
Shock and disbelief were two active participants (among other emotions) at the forefront of our minds as we began to cancel each one of our upcoming events, halt fresh new partnerships, and postpone launches that were in the queue. Our current reality was altering fast. We asked ourselves, “How should we proceed?”
Accepting. Planning. Acting.
What we couldn't do was remain stuck in a realm of disbelief. We accepted reality and became extremely present to the moment. We prioritized our health, family, friends, and teammates. Without a healthy mind and body, clarity is tough to obtain.
From there, we made a plan and revamped our ways of working by increasing our team syncs and auditing our brand priorities and goal tracker—to not only strategize and align our ideas with the current state, but also to envision where we’d like to be as a business once the pandemic subsides.
How can we engage our community in meaningful ways?
What blindspots in our business can we place more time on?
Where can we improve in our processes?
What type of company do we want to be? Why?
How can we generate more revenue as a business?
A few examples in a long list of questions that we’ve discussed and continue to navigate, but the most pressing question we faced: How do we turn our brand digital? This was an area we hadn’t placed much emphasis on before.
While securing our internal team priorities and building a new routine to operate within, we’ve been inspired by numerous brands, creators, and entertainers from all walks of life experimenting online with conferences, DJ sets, artist battles, and more––displaying the true undeniable desire for human connection.
As a brand built on community connection through physical events and experiences, we feel the weight of the current isolation. That said, we’re remaining strong and motivated, and we’re excited to take action by rolling out some cool experiences to connect and engage with our community this month.
What’s next?
One initiative in particular that we are very excited about is our Forty Series program that aims to bring young leaders and creators together to connect, learn and grow professionally. This program, originally designed as an intimate 40 under 40 in-person speaker series will now be taken online for the first time. Our first online talk will be Thursday, April 16th, 2020, and will feature Digital Content Creator and Online Educator, Gloria Atanmo.
Thinking outside of the digital box, we wanted to find a unique way to uplift and support our audience. Last December at our annual Culture Ball Gala we featured a “Letter of Affirmation” station in partnership with Martell where guests participated in writing 80+ hand-written notes of positivity that contained supportive quotes and uplifting affirmations. The twist was that these letters were to be sealed and sent by us to someone they did not know.
Considering the sentiment of these letters and how they might be able to help someone who reads one, we will be mailing these out one by one to individuals within the Toasted Life community. If you are interested in receiving one of these letters, please share your mailing information here.
In addition to our Forty Series talks & Letter of Affirmation distribution, we plan to experiment with other forms of digital entertainment for our audience as well so definitely be on the lookout for more details!
Nothing can replace that collective energy that forms at our events when the DJ drops a banger and everyone loses their mind, or those serendipitous encounters that only happen outside our homes—at meetups, at restaurants, or on trips. But we have the chance to connect with all of you sooner than later, and we’re incredibly optimistic about it.
To recap our approach:
We accepted reality and shifted our mind to what’s possible.
We strategized new ideas and made a plan, focusing on ways to improve our business and engage our audience.
Now we are taking action by doing our first IG Live interview soon. This will be followed by exciting online talks with a few of our favorite entrepreneurs and creatives through the Forty Series program. Lastly, we’re mailing of hand-written letters of affirmation to people within the Toasted Life community.
Despite the pandemic challenges, we see this as an opportunity to reflect, regroup, and come back stronger than ever––we’re rooting for you to do the same. No matter how big or small your steps to action are, just keep moving forward as best you can. We will all overcome this obstacle.
Although the COVID-19 outbreak has caused a lot of uncertainty and anxiety, it has also reminded us of the community of supporters, friends, and loved ones we are so grateful for––including you. Thank you for your support.
We look forward to getting through this, and celebrating brighter days with the community soon. Until then, let’s toast to resilience, mental peace, and good health. Please take care.
Warren Jones & Matt Tuffuor, Toasted Life Co-Founders