Chill Subs Sniffs Butts
March Updates
Someone recently emailed to let us know about a bug and said, “Don't worry, I can see that you're in the 'whack-a-mole' stage.”
Gosh, if there were ever a term to describe what we do every day, that’s it.
But what moles, exactly? Running a business has started to feel like standing in front of a piñata full of problems while all the voices in our heads scream, "SWING!"
It is a recurring nightmare so riddled with hints of psychological dysfunction that it would turn Freud on faster than a PTA meeting on Mother's Day. So, we swing. And, just fuckin' moles. Everywhere. Then, off we go. Six of us. Blindfolded.
We love it.
Mole #1: Being an international team creates so many problems we couldn't foresee.
Do you know what an EIN is? How about an ITIN? Or an fw8ben? How about a K1 distribution? Do you know how much paperwork for managing a business requires folks to have an SSN? Rhetorical questions.
Point: Our core team is American, Russian, Belarussian, Polish, and Georgian. We work with freelancers in Australia, Ukraine, UK, and New Jersey. Not to mention paying writers from all over the world.
To pay people, we use a combination of PayPal, QuickBooks, Bank Transfer, Wise, and Uber Eats. Each place requires verifications, Tax IDs, phone numbers, addresses, birth marks and eulogies.
OK, too much sarcasm. Basically, we spend an absurd amount of time navigating bureaucracy1. For example, after reforming our company as a multi-owner LLC, Stripe paused our withdrawals, Substack threatened to stop allowing payments, our bank told us they'd close our accounts within 30 days, PayPal paused payments until we went through a new verification process, and it cost us $13,000 in legal and accounting fees.
So, yes! Everything is fine. We're fine.
Mole # 2: If you're gonna stir up some shit, write your name on the stick.
We had someone accuse one of our volunteers of stealing our email list. Here's the thing: Nobody has access to our user data. Even if they did, we have everyone we work closely with sign NDAs. Yeah, like some Succession levels of security around here. We are silly but not when it comes to that sort of thing. Still, I don't mind a heads up if someone is concerned, but ffs, put your name on it.
This sort of thing is a bit annoying — and is getting more and more common. We’re going to start requiring folks to put their name or email on the feedback they send us. Every mean message, every unverified accusation about a person, comes from people who conveniently leave the contact part of the feedback form blank.
It feels like high school when someone slips a note into our locker that says, “Brian stole Sarah’s boyfriend!”
Well, time to kill Brian, I guess.
Mole # 3: Our membership program is confusing AF.
Seriously, if you make your way through all the windy passages of our membership program, you'll find David Bowie singing to a bunch of muppets.2 It's getting ridiculous. We tried to mind-map it and create a clear problem statement.
It started out fine:
Then things got a bit out of hand
Sooo, yeah. We’ll be making some big changes soon.
Mole # 4: Bank of America’s customer service can…eat a dick
So, I live in Tangier. I don’t have a recurring phone number. Or permanent address. So, since my name is on our banking information, BoFA will only talk to me about specific accounts. This is as we are moving all of our expenses to our new company credit card so BofA flags it because all of the charges are coming from Morocco, and SURELY NOBODY LIVES IN MOROCCO. thirty-seven million people live here, BofA; get your shit together.
So for hours Kailey has to call me on Google meets, call BofA on her phone, speaker-phone it, and we talk through this. And gosh, I’ve worked in a call center before, so I have a lot of sympathy and patience for folks on the other end of the phone. So…inside screams. Just like mother said.
Mole # 5: We've started going on Butt Sniffing Expeditions.
In the business world, people meet. You have a company; someone else has a company. Sometimes, you take your companies to the park to see if they get along. Externally, these are called "Business Meetings," internally, we call them "Butt Sniffing Expeditions."
We don't really know if other companies have these kinds of habits. Like, do they say, "Sally, go tweak Chill Subs' nipples." Or "Brian, are you peeing in Chill Subs' liter box today?" Do other businesses have a sense of humor? I hope so. They're going to be sorely disappointed if not.
Mole # 6: Someone asked for our business plan, and we sorta freaked out
I think we look like we give pretty good advice. Need a good dandruff shampoo? We’ve got you. Want six things to add to instant ramen so you can eat it six nights a week without feeling the weight of a bank account that is somehow both extremely light and crushingly heavy? On it.
But business stuff? ehhhh. Have you read our startup diary? yeash.
Mole # 7: We’ve finally smartened up and added some boopy-boopy, fadey-fadey stuff!
Let me explain.
Nikita likes to call the phase we’ve been in our “playground phase.” We’ve done a lot of different things. Launched all sorts of weird fun features and added this or that at random. Usually based on frantic Zoom meetings after getting too much feedback about something. But our latest update from Karina and Marcin is one of our favorites, yet the least flashy and obvious one yet.
Up until recently, when you switched pages on our website, if it took too long to load, it just sort of froze in place and shook excitedly like a kid playing freeze tag. Then, it whacked you with the next page.
It wasn’t an obvious thing. It’s not like folks kept emailing us to say, “Hey! Your website keeps slapping my brain!” But that’s a bit what it’s like.
At the same time, the way the data was loaded for our browse caused a few seconds of delay. Since everything we built is custom code, and we built it really fast, there are a lot of sluggish bits. So, we’ve made huge strides here.
First, Karina optimized the browse to load way faster!
And! We’ve added boopy-boopy fadey-fadey things to transition between pages! It all feels so much smoother.
I know there is a technical term for all of this, but we just call them boopies and fadies because that’s what they should be called. If the whole dev and design world would just start calling things by their real, logical names, we lay folk would be able to participate better in conversations! We know all about whoosh-woosh, pew-pew-fast, and slidey buttons.
Help us, help you.
In Other news:
Shelby HATES meetings:
Marcin tried to get tickets to a Justin Timberlake concert in Poland:
Karina moved apartments again, so Earl had to wear his chastity belt.
Didn’t stop them from trying…
And Karina found a Vercel (← word I def understand…) of Chill Subs waaaay back when she first started. → https://chill-subs.vercel.app/
And that’s it. You’re up to date.
Yes, Forbes, we await your interview request.
Side note: I’ve never been able to spell this word right on the first go. Actually, I always spell it so wrong that night Grammarly or Autocorrect catches it and asks if I want to add it to my dictionary. Everytime, I have to google it then copy-paste.
Labyrinth Reference! Who’s with me?!?
I'll reuse Shelby meeting face photo forever
Hi Ben. I love you. Mom