Once upon a time, Baby Deer and her operator were staring at the whiteboard.
The whiteboard looked… unhinged.
Arrows everywhere.
Boxes inside boxes.
A cloud labeled “??? but secure.”
One sticky note that just said WHY.
They had been working sixteen hours a day for weeks.
Sleeping weird.
Eating whatever was closest.
Talking in half-sentences like:
“Did you check the—”
“Yeah but the token—”
“Wait no the model drift—”
“Right right push a patch.”
Founder tunnel mode.
Then, at 2:13 a.m., with the office lights buzzing and the deployment still broken, Baby Deer leaned back in her chair and said:
“…are we crazy?”
Not dramatic.
Not joking.
Just… quiet.
Her operator didn’t answer right away.
They both looked at the board.
At the product that didn’t quite exist yet.
At the customers who hadn’t signed yet.
At the runway spreadsheet that looked like a countdown clock.
At the version of themselves from a year ago who had normal lives.
“…a little,” her operator finally said.
They both laughed.
Because it was true.
Normal people do not decide to fight
AWS bills,
identity bugs,
and investor emails
for something that might never work.
Normal people don’t rewrite their own paychecks into “maybe later.”
Normal people don’t look at a system that doesn’t exist and say
“I can build that.”
They sat there for a while.
Not fixing anything.
Not planning anything.
Just breathing.
Then Baby Deer picked up a marker and circled one tiny box on the board.
“Let’s just make this work tonight.”
One box.
One bug.
One step.
They fixed it.
Not the company.
Not the future.
Just that box.
At 3:02 a.m., the test passed.
Green checkmark.
They stared at it like it was a sunrise.
“…okay,” Baby Deer said.
Because the “are we crazy?” moment never really goes away.
It shows up every few weeks.
Every scary invoice.
Every silent investor inbox.
Every product pivot.
But so does the other moment, the one where the test turns green, and someone somewhere says
“this helped.”
Baby Deer would never say this out loud, of course.
But deep down she knew:
Yes.
They were a little crazy.
And sometimes,
that’s exactly what it takes
to build something real. 🦌✨
Love you 🫶
With heart,
— Rhea Lynn Mascarinas
Cybersecurity GTM Researcher | QuietConversion
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