We recently connected with Maya Gay and have shared our conversation below.
Maya, thrilled to have you on the platform as I think our readers can really benefit from your insights and experiences. In particular, we’d love to hear about how you think about burnout, avoiding or overcoming burnout, etc.
I burned out pretty hard in 2022 and I’d like to think I’ve learned a lot through it. And I am definitely still learning a lot about it. I thought burnout was reserved for high-stress executives in the corporate world and at 23 I felt unworthy of calling it that after such a short amount of time actually working lol.
I have a small games company called Basecamp Cards where I make conversational decks of playing cards for people to share their best stories. I did it casually throughout university and graduated at the start of COVID-19. I decided to double down and started running paid ads etc in the golden age of selling.
The experience was so exciting for me as I stayed up late packing orders and continued to scale rapidly as long as my ROAs was sustainable. However, the growing pains started to get to me after a while.
After a ton of mistakes, my self esteem and imposter syndrome started me thinking I didn’t know what I was doing. I was getting overwhelmed with the logistics and marketing and allowing myself to believe I wasn’t the right person for the job because I had no experience. I started to outsource a bunch of things to agencies with the though that the more money you pay the better the results must be. I lost the heart of my business and started feeling numb towards the problems instead of the joy and excitement I used to have.
I started isolating myself a lot and really struggled to sleep in this time. My self-worth took a hit because of my lack of execution.
Although the process was longer than I’d like to admit, I started to take steps to regain the joy I felt for my company. I started taking courses to learn skills in retail and finance and bringing operations back to me so I always knew what was going on. Although I’ve taken a hit and the company is smaller, my sense of control and drive has hugely changed my mindset.
Realizing what brings me joy and fulfillment and having the discipline to show up for myself has been a huge lesson that I will probably be working on for the rest of my life. I wasn’t happy with the way I was living life on autopilot. I’ve been focusing more on balancing the little things into my daily routine that make me happy as I rebuild.
Things that I think are making a big difference for me ( a lot are very straightforward):
working on positive self-talk
morning walk right when I get up
limiting screen time to work
Eating balanced meals, especially breakfast
Having a detailed game plan for the week and day when I get up
Setting realistic Daily goals and being disciplined with completion
Focus on my sleep health ( I’ve got a whole routine if you’re interested HAHA)
Finding mentorship and community- ( you don’t know what you don’t know but someone else probably does!)
I know burnout is increasingly common for people and I feel so blessed to have had the space and freedom to implement some changes after a lot of time avoiding things. I’m grateful for the lessons I’ve been learning through the last few years and I hope they can guide me into the next few years.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
My name is Maya and I have a small Canadian conversational playing card business called Basecamp Cards. I created the cards for a school competition after doing a backpacking trip through the Rockies. I love to chat over story sharing and I thought having questions on playing cards gives you the best of both worlds. It has been so exciting hearing people’s recollections of the cards and the quality times they’ve made while getting back to the basics.
I’m trying to become more intentional with being present through quality time with the people who mean the most to me. Cards remind me of playing with my grandpa and asking about all of his adventures. I’m treasuring that more and more these days as I think it’s becoming rarer to find. Thank you so much and I would love to hear your story! – Maya 🙂
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
1. Plugging into community resources: I think joining slack channels, facebook groups and city community groups is an awesome way to workshop ideas and network. I’m working on being a more engaged community member in these types of channels. As a solo founder, its really nice to have outside opinions and resources from people who may be going through the same things.
2. Listening to your customers: I’ve found it so helpful when I take the time and talk with customers and listen to their feedback. In the past, I didn’t want to “bother” customers and ask for their time and opinions. I learnt that people are usually super kind and willing to help out. Actually connecting with your customers may sound super generic, but I find working from home mainly behind a laptop, it’s something I can struggle to keep a focus on. Keeping dialogue going is such a rewarding way to grow.
3. Learning to be kind to yourself. So much of the tiny things we do every day we are learning for the first time. Showing up and trying anyway is so amazing. I find it can be easy to spiral about the things I don’t know and I’m working on showing up anyways and giving it my best effort.
What has been your biggest area of growth or improvement in the past 12 months?
I have been focusing on rebuilding a strong foundation for my small business. I had scaled kind of quickly ( for me) and didn’t know the foundations of what a business should be. This had me feeling like I was losing hold of the reins which resulted in me feeling out of control and embarrassed about not having better systems in place.
The online selling environment has changed so much in these past few years and I’ve been really enjoying taking it a bit slower and creating a sustainable foundation to hopefully build upon. I’ve been learning so much and have a ton I’m looking forward to.
I had started outsourcing almost everything after a bit because I assumed that agencies and contractors simply knew how to do things way better than I did. This got pretty expensive and I realized that what made my small brand fun was the fact that I was engaging with great customers and making my vision a reality. By my mismanagement, I lost the plot of the heart of the brand by handing over different departments too soon without a clearer vision. Lesson learned but I am really enjoying getting back to the basics and doing things myself.
Contact Info:
- Website: Basecampcards.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/basecampcardco
