You’ve got to start somewhere, right?

“It all begins with an idea.”

Every time you insert a new textbox on Squarespace, that’s the first filler sentence. Now, I love “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet” as much as the next guy, but I’ve been particularly inspired by this new placeholder. Because it does all begin with an idea, and, if you’ve got a few moments, I’d like to tell you mine.

In late 2022, I finally landed my dream job, albeit my third dream job. For the first time since I graduated college, I was able to add something that felt “professional” to my resume. I got to go home for the holidays and tell my family that I was “an Account Manager at a marketing firm.” Not particularly flashy, I know, but it was what I set my mind on after flaming out at my two previous dream jobs.

Fast forward to early 2024 and I was about to flame out again, but this time for a different (re: better) reason. I spent over a year at a firm that wasn’t providing results. We peddled a content marketing service that myself, as well as a number of my coworkers, knew wouldn’t work. Don’t get me wrong, my coworkers and I tried our best, but blood, sweat and tears can’t grow success out of thin air. I loved my clients, I loved the content we made, but leadership was so adamant we stay the course that I was forced to watch many of those beloved clients file for bankruptcy. I wouldn’t do it anymore, and that was my idea.

I finally developed the courage and resolve to put my foot down. To puff my chest out and say, “No. I know what I’m talking about. I know how I can help people. And it’s time for me to do it.” So I quit, and I’ve spent the last three months building on that idea. Building Bahnfyre.

Bahnfyre is my way to share my knowledge, skills, and experience, sure. But it’s really my way to help people. To balance the cosmic scales of digital hucksters promising virality for double the price of rent. To show people that social media, and by extension content marketing, doesn’t have to live behind a shroud of overwhelm and special skills. To do what I’m good at: starting fires.