The year we almost lost the fight...

The Well HQ - Chapter One

We’ve waited three years to write this. The Well’s debut book?How to Be Well: Everything active women need to be fitter, stronger, healthier ?just?went live for presale on Amazon.

Three years. It was then that Emma, Bella and I spoke about writing and self-publishing a book. Self-publishing. We love the book but weren’t massively confident about it … it was supposed to be a marketing tool to support our mission and the business we thought we’d launch.?

Fast forward, that business is 18-months in. The book we’d self-publish? Snapped up by Penguin Random House.?

The Well HQ today is a blaze of publishing and PR, corporate contracts, content and creativity. We have a team. We have a community. We have growth. We have believers, clients and advocates. We have momentum.

You might think I’m puffing the chest out and not really sounding like me!?

But?any long exhalation of breath over this side is pure relief. Here’s the truth …?

On the brink

Building a business - it’s glamourized. It’s fetishized even. But the reality for us has been so, so tough. By far the hardest thing I’ve done in my life.

Roll back six months and The Well HQ were in trouble. We were nearly out of cash?as?deals?collapsed, leads ghosted and thousands of pounds in outstanding invoices was owed to us. I wasted literal weeks over several months wrestling with finance teams at big corporates who wouldn't pay for work we'd done.?My PB on an unpaid invoice experience? Eight months for low four-figures. A start-up cannot exist on these payment terms.

Launch a business and, good and bad, you discover who you are. Me? It made me nervous about making mistakes, shortened my patience and rocked my confidence because we had no safety net. The feeling that our mission — our pledge to change the narrative for females in health, sport and life — would be shelved before we got going? Belittling. But my light wasn’t completely extinguished.

Obviously, that’s the bad. It got bad - but throughout there was good. There was hope and momentum and I’m relieved/ ecstatic to say that all helped us turn the page.?

Through the bad, our community numbers consistently grew and engagement has always been phenomenal. Every day is an ideas factory as women and men, athletes, coaches, teachers and parents discuss the status quo and how to build better for girls and women. We’ve delivered dozens of talks and hundreds of Caught Short kits around the country. We've spoken directly to thousands and our content and courses have touched hundreds of thousands more. We've built relationships with academics and journalists, decision-makers and change-makers. Great people pull for us.?

So there was good. I didn’t always see it but there was. There is. There’s great, actually.?

We have a book due to launch and have signed a major deal with England Netball. These things underwrite our business's future … and a better future for her.

Turn the page

I can’t thank our team, supporters and advocates in media, business, sport and academia enough. I can’t thank Bella and Emma enough.?

To our fans and followers, you’re about to see big changes in our website and in our community. We’re bringing content out from behind the paywall and onto the pages of our website. As fast as we can we’re building a massive repository of insights, knowledge and best practice on all things female health. Our community is now free - and those who loyally stuck with us can look forward to more major announcements soon.?

?Pre-order the book

It’s not a secret, this. But landing a book deal with a major publisher isn’t the big-money-game it once was. Unless you’re Oprah, Brene or Glennon. Yes, we’ve graduated from self-published to published but the economics are roughly the same. If we break even we’re happy.?

The book is no profit vehicle. It’s always been more than that. It’s a manifesto for change and it needs to land on the desks — and in the minds — of the right people. When more folk see, read and grasp how misunderstood she currently is, we can march forward in building a future where she belongs. Where she feels and knows she belongs.?

This is the bit where I plug the book. Where I tell you we want to land a copy in every school, university, workplace, and sports institution. Do that and together we set the foundations for change for her for life.?

We need your help - and we’re so, so grateful for it,