I spent 11 years watching small businesses drown in software.

The problem nobody was fixing.

I was employee #80 at Mailchimp. I spent over a decade helping build one of the most successful small business tools in the world. I watched it grow from a scrappy startup in Atlanta to a $12 billion company.

But here's what I saw up close, over and over again: brilliant people — plumbers, florists, salon owners, restaurant owners — struggling with technology that was supposedly built for them.

The average small business owner uses six to eight different apps to run their business. They spend hours every week switching between them. They miss leads because they were with a customer when the phone rang. They lose revenue because nobody reminded their client about tomorrow's appointment. They watch their competitor climb Google rankings because that competitor figured out how to ask for reviews.

They didn't start their business to become CRM administrators. A plumber with 22 years of experience knows his trade. He shouldn't have to learn another dashboard.

The tools kept getting more powerful, more complex, more expensive — and less useful to the people who actually needed help. The industry was building for tech companies and calling it "small business software."

Why Albuquerque?

I fell in love with New Mexico the way most people do — slowly, then all at once. The light. The food. The mountains. But what really got me was the business community.

Albuquerque is full of incredible small businesses run by people who pour everything into their craft. The tamale shop that's been family-owned for three generations. The mechanic who knows every car in the neighborhood by sound. The new consignment shop owner who's betting everything on her first year.

These people don't need a 47-feature marketing platform. They need someone who shows up, sets things up right, and makes sure it keeps working. That's what Crestworthy does.

We're starting in ABQ because we believe the best way to build something great is to do it one community at a time.

When we've helped enough businesses here that the word spreads on its own — that's when we'll know we're ready to grow. Not before.

That's why we built HeyABQ.

Before we ever sold software in Albuquerque, we wanted to do something simpler: tell the stories of the people who make this city great. HeyABQ is our project that spotlights ABQ's best small businesses, makers, and local figures — real conversations, no sponsored posts, no listicles.

It's our way of showing up for the community first. Every feature on HeyABQ comes from a real conversation with the owner, face to face, no script. If that leads to them wanting help with their business down the road, great. If not, we still got to tell a story worth telling.

Value first, always. That's not just a tagline — it's how we built HeyABQ, and it's how we'll build everything else.

What we believe.

These aren't corporate values we brainstormed in a conference room. They're how we actually work.