Building in Secret
Last week, a FlyBoy teammate and I flew out to Los Angeles for Expo West, the natural products industry’s biggest annual gathering. We went for research and recon. What we got instead was rest and relaxation. A different kind of R&R. And honestly? That feels about right for where we are.
A lot is happening behind the scenes at FlyBoy. Which is exactly the tension I’ve been sitting with lately: building in private versus building in public.
Building in private gives you room to breathe. Room to make mistakes, change your mind, move at your own pace, and figure things out without an audience scrutinizing every move. There’s something genuinely valuable in that quietness. In the unglamorous, unhurried work of just making the thing.
But I’ll be honest: I get excited. Samples come in, and I want to tell someone. We’re up late tasting, tweaking, comparing. The travel, the merch conversations, the small moments of oh, this might actually be something… every little in-between keeps the sparkle alive. The urge to share it is real.
At the same time, something said this week has been rattling around in my head. The idea that brands today aren’t really product companies; they’re media companies that happen to sell product. The implication is that if you’re not constantly posting, promoting, and publishing, you’re falling behind.
That doesn’t sit right with me.A little background. Before design school, before brand strategy, before any of this, I wanted to be an artist, and I dreamed about working in print media. But, the most practical path at the time pointed toward graphic design, so I followed it, even though I’d never owned a laptop and the tech world felt completely foreign to me.Over time, I got comfortable. Hot keys, custom GPTs, tools that let me create things I couldn’t have imagined a decade ago. I’m genuinely at home in that world now.But that comfort is its own kind of discomfort.I miss the earlier version of myself. The one who collected records and wrote a blog and, half-ironically but also completely sincerely, typewriter-typed letters to friends (shout out Catherine Anabel White). The girl who loved throwing a dance party, a house party, a theme party. Who wanted to be in the room with people, not broadcasting to them.
There’s a trend I’ve been paying attention to lately: phoneless experiences. Analog parties. People gathering to paint together, read poetry aloud, sit in a circle, and listen to a new album on vinyl. The quiet, deliberate recreation of something we used to just call being together.
I don’t want to chase this as a trend. I want to follow it authentically, because it’s actually how I want to live.
FlyBoy was never meant to be a content play; it was and is meant to be a reason to gather. It’s a drink that brings people around a table, into a backyard, onto a porch. The can is just the vehicle. The point is the room full of people.
So here’s where I’ve landed: I’m going to be a little elusive. A little unhurried when it comes to socials and what’s coming next. Not secretive in a mysterious-for-mystery’s-sake way; just honest about the fact that the work is happening, it’s real, and it deserves the space to develop without a content calendar attached to it.
In the meantime, I’ll be here: sipping through different spirits, chasing the right blend of botanical and carefree, complex and joyful.
When it’s ready, you’ll know.
Wheels Up!
Margo, Founder of FlyBoy Aperitif