New Year, same two-woman shitshow (but stronger than ever)

There’s a particular kind of magic that happens in a tiny team – the kind of team where the whole operation could fit around a café table, where ideas overlap, and where you don’t need a meeting because you’ve already had three by accident while making coffee.

It’s chaotic.
It’s intense.
It’s occasionally unhinged.
And it’s also one of the greatest privileges of my life.

Running Frank & Earnest as a two-woman outfit means the lines between work and life blur. Not in a “we should start a wellness podcast” way, but in a “you’re crying and I’m writing the email” kind of way. It means celebrating wins the second they happen, troubleshooting on the fly, finishing each other’s sentences, and sometimes having entire conversations through facial expressions alone. Often it also involves dancing. And copious amounts of profanity.

2025 has been a big one for me personally. The kind of year that arrives like a bolt of lightning and more than a touch of heaviness; the kind that asks you to grow, stretch, choose, recalibrate. The kind that makes you look at your life and think, “Okay, deep breath… here we go.”

Big personal years don’t stay neatly in their lanes. They spill into work. They colour your capacity. They shift your energy. They remind you that you’re – inconveniently, beautifully – human.

And this is where having a business partner who is also a friend, like my very own Peita, becomes less of a blessing and more of a lifeline.

Because working alongside someone who genuinely cares about you, and not just your output, changes everything. Someone who sees when you’re not okay before you’ve said a word. Someone who knows when to push and when to soften. When to hand you a coffee, when to hand you a tissue, and when to hand you a deadline. Someone who shows up with equal parts compassion and laser-focus, ready to tag in without question.

We joke about being a two-woman cyclone, but the truth is: we’re a two-woman anchor. Equal parts ballast and buoyancy. When one rises, the other lifts. When one sinks, the other steadies.

People often ask how we manage to run a business together without driving each other mad. The secret is simple:
We actually like each other.
Deeply.
Ridiculously.
In a “this is the safest place I could possibly land” kind of way.

And with everything that 2026 looks set to bring – professionally ambitious, personally demanding – that alignment matters more than ever. It’s the difference between feeling overwhelmed and feeling held. Between running a business and building a life with someone who has your back, your heart, and occasionally your unfinished Word docs.

Small teams make big things possible.
But small teams with genuine affection, honesty, humour and respect?
They make anything possible.

Here’s to the year ahead – messy, meaningful, ambitious, human.
Here’s to showing up for each other in all of it.
And here’s to making big things with the smallest, fiercest team I know.

Bel