There’s something especially disappointing about being let down by another woman in business.

Maybe because I am always rooting for women.

Maybe because I know how hard it is to build something from nothing. To make payroll. To take the risk. To put your name and your face and your whole life behind something and hope people believe in it.

And maybe because I naively thought there was some sort of unspoken understanding between women doing this.

Apparently not always.

Recently, we received an order from a Hudson Valley subscription box company. They create seasonal boxes featuring local and independent brands, and they wanted to include our hand balms.

It was a meaningful order for us.

We accepted it. Planned production around it. Bought what we needed. Allocated the inventory. Because when you actually manufacture your own products, an order isn’t just a number on a spreadsheet. Someone has to make it. Someone has to fill it. Someone has to pack it.

Then I found out the order was being cancelled.

Not because our product wasn’t good enough.

Not because the numbers didn’t work.

Not because the customer had changed direction.

But because another local female business owner, someone who is friends with the owner of the subscription company, apparently didn’t want us included.

From what I was told, she asked her friend to cancel our order.

And her friend did.

The owner of the subscription company was clearly embarrassed telling me. I actually felt for her in that moment. She said this person was a good friend and she felt she needed to stand by her.

But I couldn’t stop thinking:

Why?

Why does standing by your friend have to mean hurting another woman’s business?

Why couldn’t standing by your friend also mean saying, “I love you, but this is unreasonable. This is another small business. They already have an order. People are relying on this.”

Because people were.

I told her plainly that the value of the order she was cancelling was basically somebody’s paycheck for the week.

That is what small business actually looks like.

It’s easy to talk about supporting small businesses when it means reposting a pretty Instagram story.

It’s different when supporting a small business requires you to stand up to your friend.

And I think that is the part that bothered me most.

We make our products ourselves.

There are people in our Hudson space rendering, pouring, filling, labeling, packing. There are paychecks attached to these purchase orders. There are families behind them.

This isn’t theoretical for me.

And yes, part of me wondered whether this other owner sees me as a threat.

I’m younger. I’m newer. My business is growing quickly. I came onto the scene without decades of history or permission from anyone.

Maybe that has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Maybe it does.

I don’t know.

So instead of gossiping about it, I emailed her.

I told her I would genuinely love to understand why she seems to have an issue with my growing brand.

Because I would rather ask someone directly than create a story in my head.

I’m not interested in tearing another woman down.

That would make me exactly the kind of person I am upset about.

But I am interested in talking about this weird thing that happens in female entrepreneurship where we celebrate women winning right up until somebody starts winning a little too close to us.

Then suddenly the language changes.

She’s too ambitious.

She’s everywhere.

She’s growing too quickly.

Who does she think she is?

I have probably been guilty of feeling flashes of this too. We are human. Jealousy exists. Competition exists.

But there is a huge difference between having an uncomfortable feeling and actively interfering with somebody else’s livelihood.

I want more for women in business than that.

I want to be the woman who texts another founder when I see her product on a shelf and says FUCK YES.

The woman who gives the introduction.

The woman who recommends another woman for the opportunity even when I could have kept it for myself.

The woman who sees somebody coming up behind her and doesn’t try to shut the door.

There is enough room.

There really is.

And if another woman building something brilliant makes you feel threatened, maybe the answer isn’t to make her smaller.

Maybe it is to ask yourself why her getting bigger makes you uncomfortable.

I was angry when this happened.

Part of me wanted to name both businesses.

Part of me wanted to put the whole thing out there and let everyone decide for themselves what they thought of it.

But I won’t.

Karma has a funny way of sorting these things out anyway.

And more importantly, I don’t want to build my company from bitterness.

I would much rather turn it into a reminder of the kind of founder I want to be.

Generous.

Kind.

Competitive, absolutely.

Ambitious as hell.

But never at the expense of somebody else simply because their light feels a little too close to mine.

There is room for all of us.

And if women really want to talk about supporting women, this is the part that matters.

Not the Instagram post.

Not the panel discussion.

Not the “female founded” badge.

What you do when nobody else is watching.

Who you recommend.

Who you make room for.

And whether, when your friend asks you to hurt another woman’s business for no good business reason, you have enough courage to say no.