One Year In: The Circuitous, Messy, Beautiful Path to Peopling

Despite all the books, courses, podcasts, accelerators, and mentorships, there is no single way to start a business—especially when you’re trying to keep another one afloat. But if I had to guess, most founder stories follow a similar rhythm:

You have an idea.
You shape the idea.
You talk to others.
You reshape the idea.
You make a plan.
You spreadsheet.
You build.
You hit a wall.
You reshape again.
Personal life explodes.
You talk to someone.
You spreadsheet.
You reshape.
You question all your life choices.
You continue.

Repeat for 365 days.

It’s funny because it’s true. And it’s also deeply clarifying.

Looking back at Peopling’s first year, I can say with confidence that we took a 12-month, circuitous, half-tech-half-spiritual path right back to where we started: the human relationship. Specifically, relationships at “pinch points”—those moments when life gets messy and we realize that learning, growth, and support don’t fit neatly into single categories. Where parenting meets psychology meets identity meets culture. Where personal growth meets systemic friction. Where our outer life and inner life collide.

These are the places we’re drawn to. And our first big pinch point? Neurodiversity and parenting.

The Moment Where Life and Self Meet

It wasn’t a market analysis that led us there. It was something more personal.

Most parents don’t learn about ADHD or autism or executive function until their child is struggling. That moment—when you realize your kid is wired differently—is disorienting. Not because there’s anything wrong with them, but because suddenly, all your assumptions are up for review. What does it mean to be “on track”? What does success look like? What even is a “normal” kid?

As your child grows, the parenting playbook you were handed—often inherited unconsciously from your own upbringing—starts to feel incomplete. Your desire to be a good parent runs smack into your unexamined history, cultural baggage, and internalized beliefs about worth, productivity, and independence.

That collision? It’s the real work. And it’s where Peopling began.

Culture, AI, and the Quest for Control

We spent a good chunk of the year exploring the tech side of things—like many startups do. We sketched out an app. We dreamed about AI. We even designed a way for people to track how their communication patterns and self-awareness shift over time (and we still might build it).

But in a world where AI is hyped as the savior (thanks, Elon), surveils our every move (thanks, Peter), enables endless consumption (cheers, Jeff), and supposedly makes us lazy (looking at you, Sam), we found ourselves asking a quieter question:

What makes people feel seen?

And that question brought us back to something wonderfully analog: learning in community. With real people. In real conversations. About the real struggles that shape our lives. Earth shattering? Likely not. But forgotten, absolutely.

We realized we didn’t want to be just another tool. We wanted to be a space. A space where people could peel back the layers of their relationships—with their kids, their partners, their past selves—and begin to see what’s underneath the frustration, the tension, the distance.

The First Year Was... a Lot

To be honest, the first year had everything: late-night existential texts, spreadsheets with way too many tabs, tech rabbit holes, kirfuffles about “framing,” a moment of panic around tax documents and how you report zero activity, and lots and lots of conversations that started with “Wait, do we really want to do this?”

And yes—some real financial tightness. Would we love the year back? Sure, if it came with a time-traveling investor and a paid developer. But we’d also miss all the lessons, the pivots, the reminders that our strength is in our clarity of purpose, not our scalability.

Along the way, we piloted content with families of neurodivergent teens and found something remarkable: people didn’t just want information. They wanted witnessing. Reflection. Tools to see themselves differently. And a non-judgmental space to ask: What if I could parent from a place of insight, not fear?

People First. Still.

At its heart, Peopling was never about productivity hacks or behavior checklists—there are plenty of Instagram and TikTok videos on that. It was about shifting from a transactional mindset—“What do I need to do to fix this?”—to a relational one: “Who do I need to become to show up with more compassion, presence, and understanding?” I want to accentuate that shifting to a relational mindset isn’t light work, and it is essential in laying the foundation and realism around any “fix” you try to bring to bear on a relationship. It taps the question of the “why,” and it often holds up a mirror to something we didn’t see….ourselves.

In that way, we’re not just building a business. We’re building a quiet rebellion against all the things that fracture us: isolation, disconnection, shame, and rigid ideas of what it means to be a “good” parent, partner, successful employee, or person.

We’re in the business of peeling back, not piling on.

So yes, we’re one year in. A little tired. A little stretched. But also clearer than ever.

We believe in people. In relationships. In the possibility of redoing—and rehumanizing—the way we grow, together.

Thanks for walking with us (Mike, Tabitha, Joanna, Nandini, Simon, Steve, Paulo, Murat, Theresa, Joan, Yvette, and Naomi AND all our piloting parents.) Here's to Year Two. Here's to you.