Running a business means deciding who you’re for.

But a lot of us spend years trying to be for everyone.

In this week’s episode of Find Your Freaks, I sat down with mobile bartender and founder of The Tipsy Hellcat, Danie Tidwell, to talk about what happened when she stopped softening her brand to keep the door open for clients who were never going to walk through it.

Danie built her business around alt weddings. Leather, lace, goth cathedrals, whatever a couple actually wants instead of what a bridal magazine presents as the ideal wedding. When she started leaning all the way into that niche, a lot of people thought she was on the fast track to failure.

She was scared too.

What actually happened is a teacher booked her. A librarian booked her. A backyard full of doctors booked her for a birthday party with burlesque dancers and pancake-throwing.

We talk about why specificity reads as trust instead of exclusion, what it means to manufacture proof before you have a client portfolio, and why she welcomes the competitors her instincts tell her to avoid.

And yes, we talk about pancakes being thrown at a grown man.

But underneath all of it is a bigger question: What are you still hedging, and who is it actually protecting?

— Tonya

P.S. Do you have a favorite episode so far? Reply here and let us know about it.