The room I wished I’d walked into.

A letter from Joelle.

I built a product company before I built this one. So I know what it feels like to stare at a spreadsheet at one in the morning trying to work out whether a single purchase order will sink you, to email a hundred factories and hear back from four, and to walk into rooms where nobody else was carrying what you were carrying.

Along the way I raised money, negotiated with buyers, shipped products people actually use, and yes, pitched on Shark Tank with my brand, FunkkOFF!. Very little of it needed to be as lonely as it was. The information existed somewhere. The women who had already done the hard version existed somewhere. They were just never in one place, and almost nothing was built for women taking a physical product from a sketch to a shelf.

What was missing

The communities I found were either too broad to be useful or too closed to get into. General startup advice does not tell you how to read a manufacturing agreement, price for real margin, or get a retail buyer to answer. And the few rooms that did have that knowledge were not built around the specific path women take when they make something physical and try to sell it.

I wanted the templates and contracts I eventually paid lawyers to redraft. I wanted a directory of women who had already solved the exact problem in front of me. I wanted a group small enough that a real person would give me a real answer, instead of a comment thread that goes quiet.

So I built it

FIRE is that place, built on purpose and kept intentional. We cap the founding membership so it stays a room and not a stadium. We are careful about who joins and what we publish. Everything inside it is something I wish someone had handed me on day one, from the forms library to the network to the working sessions where founders actually help each other.

If you are building something, you are welcome here. I am really glad you found us.