This year marks 20 years since I founded Remote COO.

When I say that out loud, it still surprises me a little.

For the first five or six years, I didn’t even know what I was building. I was a solopreneur doing good work for good clients, saying yes to what was in front of me, and figuring it out as I went. There was no grand vision, no long-range plan, no scale model on a whiteboard somewhere. It was just me, my skill set, and a growing list of people who needed support.

As the work increased, I started bringing on contractors. Over time, those contractors became employees. Slowly and organically, a team formed. Remote COO didn’t grow because I chased growth — it grew because clients kept coming and I couldn’t do it all myself anymore.

Year over year, the business met the financial needs of my family. I was able to employ part‑time moms who needed flexibility. I could be present during the day for my kids. I could support a husband whose work schedule was unpredictable and, at times, took him out of the country. The business fit into my life in a way I deeply needed at that stage.

And that matters.

But I’ll be honest — there’s another side of this story that’s harder to say out loud.

When you’ve been in business for 20 years, there’s a quiet voice that creeps in sometimes. The one that says:
You should be further along.
You should be at this revenue number.
You should have it figured out by now.

I’ve felt that tension more times than I can count — especially when I compare my company to other businesses with far shorter timelines. Reconciling that hasn’t always been easy. I have to acknowledge that I grew up here. Starting this just a few years out of college, at 26, and grew up in my business. I didn’t ‘cut my teeth’ in corporate. I gained my expertise by doing all the things, through trial and error, and figuring it out.

What I come back to — again and again — is this: the business did exactly what it needed to do, when it needed to do it. It supported my family. It supported my team members and their families. It gave me margin when margin mattered most. It allowed me to build a company that was human, flexible, and sustainable — not just profitable.

That doesn’t mean the next chapter has to look the same.

My kids are grown now. I’m not building around nap schedules or school pickups anymore. I’m thinking about retirement. About a nest egg. About what this business could become if I stop treating growth as something that just happens and start treating it as something I lead intentionally. I’m ready to move beyond growth that’s simply sustainable and into growth that’s strategic and scalable — growth that benefits the people who’ve been here for years, the team we’re continuing to build, my family, and myself.

Not because the past version was wrong. But because the season has changed.

I know I’m not alone in this. I hear it from other business owners who’ve built solid, steady companies — the ones that “worked” for a long time but were never designed to scale. There’s often a quiet reckoning point where you ask: Is it okay to want more now?

I believe the answer is yes.

Wanting intentional growth doesn’t erase the value of what you’ve already built. It honors it. It says: This was good. And now I’m ready to build what’s next.

Twenty years in, I finally feel clear about that.

And I’m excited to see what happens when experience, clarity, and intention finally line up.