The recipe cards were real magic. For two years, they were my strongest revenue engine. They helped prove that customers wanted my illustrated way of teaching food. They helped me survive and grow while working on my first book.

But they also taught me something important:

Physical products are their own beast.E-commerce is not the same as a Kickstarter quest. A deck of cards is not the same as a story world. Fulfillment, tariffs, inventory, customer service, ad spend, supply chains—those are not small background details. They are a whole business model.

And in pouring myself into building this business, I'd lost touch with the original magic that created these recipe cards in the first place.