Friday, July 17, 2026Independent journalism about building companiesIssue no. 214
The weekly letter

Company Profile

4 stories filed under Company Profile.

Ana Ferreira and Tom Aldous standing at a whiteboard covered in handwriting, mid-discussion.

Company Profile

The company Halyard didn’t build

Ana Ferreira and Tom Aldous have run a sailmaking company to $6M ARR and 31 staff without outside money. The interesting decisions are all the ones they declined.

JUL 4 · 8 MIN
Crates of produce being loaded into the back of a truck at a farm in early morning light.

Company Profile

Fieldnote, the two-person startup rebuilding farm logistics

Maya Okonjo and one engineer route produce for 60 co-ops. They have turned down every offer of money that came with a plan to hire.

JUN 28 · 8 MIN
A dye house interior with steel vats, hanging skeins of rust and indigo yarn, and a wet concrete floor.

Company Profile

The company Priya Nair priced into existence

Loom&Co finished last year at $9.6M with 34 people and a 61% gross margin. Every structural decision in the building traces back to one sentence about queues.

JUN 20 · 9 MIN
A bindery bench with a book in a finishing press, gold tooling laid out beside it and a wall of hand tools behind.

Company Profile

Hollis Bindery and the arithmetic of staying small

Bern Hollis has spent forty-seven years declining to grow a bookbindery. The decision he is making now — selling it to his apprentice for $1.5M less than it’s worth — is the same decision, with a date on it.

JUN 14 · 8 MIN