Client Diaries

She usually messages me at 11 pm.

Sometimes it’s a voice note that begins with, “Sorry, this is so late…”

I know she has a life outside LinkedIn. She is a founder.

So I don’t wake up the next morning thinking, We need to have a conversation about boundaries.

Because 11 pm is simply when she finally gets time to breathe.

Her day could have been filled with customers, employees, vendors, investors, family, a dozen decisions nobody else could make for her.

And somewhere between all of that, she remembers: Oh, I need to reply to Ketaki.

I believe in understanding the person behind the calendar. 

I don’t need her to reply to me immediately.

I don’t expect her to be available all day.

I don’t want her to become “better at boundaries” so that she becomes easier for me to work with.

I want to make her life easier.

If 11 pm is when she has the mental space to think about her LinkedIn post, I’m okay with that.

If she disappears for three days because the business needed her, I don’t take it personally.

I’m not here to add another system she has to manage. I’m here to take one thing off her plate.

When you work with founders, especially women founders, you have two choices:

You can ask them to fit into your process.

Or you can be flexible enough to fit into theirs.

I’d rather be the person who makes their life easier than the person who gives them one more thing to do “better.”