Digital Drip By Aliya Turns One!
by Aliya Banks | 2 Min Read
One year ago today, I started Digital Drip by Aliya.🎉🎉🥹
What a difference a year can make!
I thought the hardest part would be building the business.
It wasn’t.
The hardest part was becoming the person who could actually sustain it, body, mind, and soul.
I came into marketing after more than a decade in health care. I had many positions: phlebotomist, Certified Clinical Medical Assistant, and a Nursing Assistant both in and out of facilities. I worked in everything from women's health to dementia care, studying the industry as well as human nature.
At first, I called myself a copywriter because it was the closest word I had. I knew I had writing skills but didn't know how to use them in marketing yet.
It Took Most of This Year to Realize I Wasn’t Just Writing Copy.
I was doing what I did in those clinical settings: listening for what isn’t being said, naming it, and trying to fill that gap.
My business started as a little bit of everything. A shop, a blog meant to inspire artist, my art, and marketing services. Honestly, it was all over the place.
Over those 12 months, slowly, it became focused.
But every time the business changed, I had to change first.
These days I talk specifically about the gap between who a founder has become and how the brand still sounds. I had to close that gap in myself more than once this year.
The last two weeks were the clearest example.
I felt the bottom fall out. Not because of anything outside of me, but because of my own doubt.
The Digital Drip by Aliya Timeline.
Was I Enough To Actually Make This Work?
So I went quiet. I stopped posting. I shrank. I avoided the hard, unglamorous parts that make a business a business.
I eventually dug my way out of the avoidance trap and that sad little pity party I was throwing for myself and remembered how far I’d come. I went back to my newsletter and started posting again. I went back to promoting this business and kept going with new projects I had started.
This year I also dealt with some health issues that kept me from working. I had to face something I didn’t expect either: a fear of success, and what that type of responsibility looked like.
Let me tell you, the growth this business asked of me was never only professional, and many times I had to sit with that.
I Was Never Alone
Being a solo business owner is a lonely profession. Being in a new state and leaving behind 8 years of what felt familiar was also seriously challenging.
If I’m being honest though, I was never alone. I’ve had people tell me to keep going, support me financially, met LinkedIn people IRL, and had insightful and fun coffee chats via Zoom with clients and peers. There are family members who say I read your newsletter ⚖️The Weight of Words🪶 every week! I joined 2 women’s groups and found a community that’s supported me spiritually and as my best word-of-mouth marketers. I’ve been supported in ways that would take lifetimes to repay.
I am grateful!
So year two, I’m moving with power as the founder I’ve grown into, not the one who started.
I'm more willing to do the hard things and know it won't break me. I know now what I’m capable of, and I’ve found a consistency and belief in myself that’s grown stronger over this past year.
Year one done, and I wouldn't have done it any other way!🎉
Thanks to everyone who’s truly supported me so far💞
~Aliya
P.S. Take a moment to see what I’ve been building and what’s new over at my personal Digital Headquarters. Click the button below.
