Happy February! Sheeva here. This month’s newsletter is a multimedia one, with both text and audio. Thanks for reading/listening! We are grateful to be able to do what we do and would not be here without your kind support.
Fancy Comma turns 5 years old this month. We’ve already posted about it on LinkedIn and stay tuned for a birthday post on our blog in the next couple of weeks, too (subscribe so you don’t miss it!).
As I write this, I’m taking a break from organizing Oklahoma’s event for Stand Up for Science 2025, a nonpartisan rally in support of science and scientists happening around the US on March 7. Without the experience of running a small science communications and policy company, this would be an incredibly daunting task, but since I’m now experienced in helping projects happen out of thin air, I breezed through my to-dos contacting lawmakers, scientists, the media, and others today!
Something I’ve learned over the past five years: when you think about what needs to be done, and do that despite being fearful or anxious about what might happen, things get done.
Yes, running a business has its highs and lows, but the day-to-day emotions you may feel are often unrelated to the success of the business itself. You might feel stressed out cold-emailing someone, dejected getting yet another rejection for a media or client pitch, or experience irrational glee seeing a white paper you’ve written out there Changing Stuff (tm) out in the world.
It can also be hard to explain to someone that the edits you did for a client helped them refine their internal messaging and actually accomplish that really specific thing they wanted to do. Those are the wins that I live for as a freelancer, but experiencing all of the associated emotions can be overwhelming in the moment.
Others may not even realize why you are celebrating the most random things ever, like someone emailing you back or getting your name added to a byline for a piece you wrote.
There can also be a lot of rejection and redirection as you try to figure out a path to make the impossible possible. It’s not easy, but over time, you adapt and grow and become more flexible, and learn to put it all into perspective.
Running a company with a dual mission of serving clients in the writing and marketing space as well as training scientists with the communications and policy skills we have learned on-the-job is somewhat of a lofty mission, but I’m grateful that we’ve been able to work towards this goal through small, consistent efforts.
I have learned to prioritize better and step away for a bit when it’s all feeling too much. There are very few people working in this space and our work is urgently needed, which can feel overwhelming at times — I wrote previously about my pandemic burnout.
Luckily, one privilege of being an established small business owner is that you don’t have to hustle as hard as you did when starting out. You start to build the essential skills to help you succeed, as well as a reputation that speaks for itself. For example, journalist Simon Spichak reached out to me for comment for his piece in Being Patient about the NIH science communications freeze in late January 2025. It felt awesome to have what I told Simon be a pull quote for the entire article, and to more generally, be looked to as a trusted voice in science communications. Here’s what I told Simon:
Fancy Comma newsletter readers, I am excited to see what lies ahead — and to keep sharing what we learn about entrepreneurship, science, and life with our newsletter readers. Thank you!
What we’ve been up to this month:
We’ve been blogging about scientists applying their skills to analyze policy, why people should hire us for science-based, nonpartisan political communications, how to become a policy consultant, and the little-known practice of Congressional franking (and how it helps incumbents remain in power). We also reviewed Dr. Peter Hotez’s new book about the dangers of anti-science movements.
Thanks for reading this month’s newsletter. If you liked it, please share it! You can also reply to this newsletter via email or leave a comment if you have anything you’d like us to talk about in future newsletters.
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