Here's the short version: I got laid off, decided to start a small business, and I'm documenting everything as I go.

Here's the longer version.

My name is Charley Ellis. I'm 35 years old, I'm a mom, and until recently, I was an Email Marketing Manager at a mid-size company in the Midwest. I spent three years there. I was good at my job. And then one day I got called into a meeting with HR, and twenty minutes later I was packing up.

Restructuring. Budget cuts. Thirty people, including me, gone in one day.

For a few weeks, I did the thing. LinkedIn. Job boards.

Resume updates. Canva templates. You know the drill. But somewhere around week six, I realized I wasn't just tired of job hunting. I was tired of the whole setup — spending years building something for someone who could decide I wasn't needed anymore in a single meeting.

So I made a different kind of decision. I decided to build something for myself.

The problem was, I had no idea how. I didn't know what kind of business to start. I didn't know the difference between an LLC and a sole proprietorship. I didn't know what a registered agent was. I didn't know what I didn't know — and that was the scariest part.

I started Googling. And what I found was a lot of noise.

Courses for $997. Guys in rented mansions saying "just start." Motivational posts with no actual steps. Nobody was starting from the beginning. The real beginning.

So I decided to be that person.

Day 1 CEO is me documenting every single step of starting a business from scratch. Not from expertise — from experience. I'm not a business coach. I'm not a consultant.

I'm a mom who is learning this in real time and writing it all down so that the next person who's Googling "how to start a business" at midnight can find something honest.

What you'll find here is what's working, what's not, what I'm figuring out, and what I'd do differently if I could start over. No masterclass. No six-figure screenshots.

Just the truth.

If that sounds like what you need right now — welcome.

Day 1 is today.

— Charley