Gratitude for Our Community

To the Embarc Collective Community –

Normally during this season, I’m eager to reflect on what I’m grateful for most. This year it took me longer to process and unearth my gratitude, but I know what I value the most right now: this community.

This community has banded together through the ups and downs of the year in a way that surpassed all my expectations, with a nimbleness I could have never predicted.

We started in January opening our space, and for the first time, bringing this community of startups together to build, learn and collaborate. It was exciting and new and promising.

And just when we were hitting our stride, the pandemic hit. And even though our physical world got disrupted, we stayed connected. And that’s where I feel proud – this community has stuck together. The Embarc Collective community has grown from 42 startups to 56 startups since the start of the pandemic. Think about that, you likely have not met a large part of these new teams face-to-face yet. And still, you say “absolutely, anything for a fellow member” when I ask if you can help company.

This is why I find my gratitude in this community of nearly 200 individuals. The fact that each individual that is affiliated with Embarc Collective has a community standing beside them ready to say “yes, I’ll help.”

Building a startup is lonely and hard. My sincerest hope is for you to know you have this amazing community of people going through it too and that makes this journey a little less lonely and a little less difficult.

It may be in-person, via Zoom or just a 🙌 on Slack, but I hope you can take a moment to appreciate this community that you’ve helped to build. It’s what I’m most grateful for this Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving – wishing a safe, happy holiday to you all.
Lakshmi