The Work Behind the Work

I saw a meme the other day that said “The gap between “I have an idea” and “I built that” is about 25,000 hours of work nobody saw, nobody clapped for, nobody asked about, and nobody posted. Keep going.”

As and entrepreneur, that is exactly how it feels to build something from the ground up.

I think when people see The Collective or Farmed & Forged now, they see the events, markets, graphics, newsletters, photos, vendors, articles, interviews, partnerships, social posts, programs, and people showing up. I love that, because those are the pieces people get to experience, and they are exactly what we have worked so hard to build. We want it to feel welcoming, polished, and intentional.

But what they don’t see are all the years before anyone really knew what The Collective was, before people understood what I was trying to build, before the markets looked like this, before there were grants, city partnerships, food access programs, a team, or even people paying attention. There were times when it was just me, trying to prove myself over and over again.

I had to convince people this was more than a cute little networking group or a market. I was walking into rooms where people didn’t know me, didn’t have a clue what I was trying to build, and weren’t always interested in finding out.

And honestly, I get it. New ideas can be hard for people to understand at first, especially when they don’t look like what people are used to seeing. Sometimes the only way to earn trust is to keep showing up until the work starts speaking for itself.

So that is what I did. I kept showing up, and a lot of that showing up happened long before there was anything exciting to post about. I did work for free and I took opportunities that were not profitable because I knew I needed the chance to prove what I could do.

That is the part I think about when I think about the work behind the work.

People see Farmed & Forged now and they see a market with vendors set up, kids using Chef Cash, shoppers walking around with bags of produce, live music, cooking demos, artists painting, people running into friends, and families spending time together.

What they don’t see is everything it takes to make that happen: the vendor communication, market maps, permits, insurance, SNAP tracking, graphic design, grant writing, reports, sponsor conversations, city coordination, health department questions, food access planning, vendor placement, kids programming, nonprofit partnerships, emergency planning, signage, social media, newsletters, setup logistics, staff training, meetings, and about a hundred other things that have to come together before anyone walks through the market.

People don’t see every email, follow-up, budget decision, hard conversation, last-minute change, weather call, backup plan, or problem that gets handled quietly behind the scenes. They also don’t see the early years of working to build something while not paying yourself, or taking on extra jobs because you know the next step is hiring help, even if that means waiting longer to pay yourself.

Most people just see the market as it is when they show up, and that’s kind of the point. When the work is done well, people can walk in and feel welcomed without noticing all the pieces that made it happen. They can shop, connect, eat, listen to music, use their benefits, bring their kids, and enjoy the space because the work behind the scenes has already been done.

The same is true with The Collective. People see the events, member features, networking, introductions, workshops, photos, social posts, and people connecting in a way that hopefully feels natural and easy, but behind that is so much paying attention. It is noticing who is in the room and who is missing, thinking about who should meet, making sure new members do not feel awkward walking into a space where they do not know anyone yet, writing the email, updating the website, answering the message, fixing the form, planning the event, promoting the member, creating the opportunity, and trying to make sure the space still feels authentic and welcoming even as it grows.

It is also years of building trust, and that part cannot be rushed. You can’t brand or market your way into people trusting you. You have to earn it by doing what you said you were going to do, showing up, fixing things when they go wrong, and making decisions with integrity even when no one is watching. Trust is built doing these things over and over again, until people believe you mean what you say.

That is the part people often miss about building anything. The idea matters, of course, because every business, event, and program, starts with and idea, but the idea itself is not the whole thing. The actual work is everything that comes after it if you want that idea to become real.

It is building the program, making the call, asking for the meeting, getting told no, asking again, learning things you did not know, messing something up, fixing it, trying again, building the system, and then rebuilding the system when you figure out how to make it better. It is explaining the vision, defending the vision, adjusting the vision, and trying not to lose the heart of it while you figure out how to make it actually work in reality.

That is the gap between “I have an idea” and “I built that.” It is the quiet work, the frustrating work, the unpaid work, the awkward work, the work that happens before anyone understands why you care so much, and the work that keeps happening long after people assume you have it all figured out.

In the early years of The Collective, I was still figuring it out while trying to convince people it was worth figuring out. I knew what I wanted it to feel like and that I wanted it to be different from the rooms I had been in before. I knew I wanted small business owners, creatives, artists and entrepreneurs to feel like there was a place for them, even if they did not fit the typical business mold.

But knowing what you want to build and actually building it are two very different things.

There were plenty of moments where I wondered if people would understand it or if I was working really hard for something other people would never see. Over time, though, people started to see it through the relationships, the events, the members telling other people, the vendors coming back, the partners trusting us with more, and the slow realization that this was not a one-off idea. It was something being built with intention.

That is why the work behind the work matters so much. It’s what takes an idea from something you talk about to something that actually exists and can grow. A lot of people have ideas, and a lot of people have really good ones, but building a business means staying with it through the parts that are hard, expensive, confusing, unglamorous, and it’s usually moving way slower than you want it to.

For us, that work shows up in different ways, but the goal is connected. At Farmed & Forged, it looks like building a market that is not only a place to shop, but also a place where families can access fresh food, farmers and food producers can earn income, artists and musicians can be paid, nonprofits can connect with the community, and small businesses can grow. At The Collective, it looks like creating rooms, features, events, and opportunities that help people feel seen, supported, connected to the right people at the right time, and get connected to the people, opportunities, and support that help their businesses keep moving forward.

The Collective and Farmed & Forged may look different from the outside, but they are built from the same place. They are both about creating spaces where people feel supported, where small businesses and entrepreneurs can grow, and where community is something people actually feel and experience, not just something we say.

To me, community is follow-through. It is consistently showing up, making sure people are not just invited but actually able to participate, and thinking through who benefits, who gets paid, who feels welcome, who has been left out, and how we can build something where the benefit reaches in more than one direction.

And that takes time. It takes the hours nobody sees, the work nobody claps for, the parts nobody thinks to ask about, and the years of proving yourself over and over before people fully understand what you are building.

So if you are in that part right now, where you have the idea but you are still in the middle of building it, I hope you keep going. If you are tired of explaining yourself, wondering if people see how much work you are putting in, or trying to prove that your idea matters before it looks impressive to anyone else, I hope you keep going.

Because the thing people see later, the event, the business, the program, the full room, the strong brand, the trusted name, usually exists because someone spent years doing the work no one saw. Someone stayed with it long enough to learn, adjust, mess up, fix it, build trust, and keep going when it would have been easier to stop.

That is the part of building a business I respect most now. Not just the fancy launch, the good turnout, the polished photo, or the moment everyone finally sees it, but the long stretch of work it took to get there.

That is the work behind the work, and it’s the part that makes the difference between having an idea and actually building something.