The Boogiewoods
What I learned in the garage.
If you walked by my garage on a random Tuesday night in 2020, you probably would’ve seen me hunched over a packing table, half-listening to a podcast, trying to keep the tape gun quiet. I was surrounded by boxes, surrounded by the familiar low buzz of doubt and drive that shows up at 11PM when you’re still working on something you believe in.
That’s when Tony walked by.
Tony’s my neighbor. We’d exchanged a few casual conversations before, but that night he stopped. Leaned against the open garage like it was his. Looked around at the mess of paper scraps and shipping labels and said, “Man, looks like you’re really getting after it.”
He didn’t mean anything by it. Just an observation. But that one comment turned into an hour long conversation about where we come from and why we work the way we do. Turns out Tony grew up in Virginia. Got into bodybuilding in his twenties. Competed. Trained hard. Ate the same five things every day for months. No shortcuts. No crowd. Just reps.
He told me that back then, he and his brother had this phrase they’d say to each other during that part of the process—the early, invisible, obsessive part. They called it The Boogiewoods.
I asked him what it meant. He said it’s the time when you’re working on your dreams but nobody sees it. It’s not glamorous. It’s not public. It’s the phase where you’re in the background, alone with your effort. And if you’re lucky, your belief.
The Boogiewoods is a garage with the door cracked open and a space heater humming. It’s driving postmates to make rent. It’s training in silence. It’s trying to stay motivated when no one’s watching and no one’s clapping and maybe no one even knows what you’re trying to do. But you do it anyway.
After he left, I grabbed a black Sharpie and wrote THE BOOGIEWOODS in big block letters on the wall above my packing station. Every night since, I’ve looked at it as I tape up boxes. A weird kind of altar. A reminder that just because something’s quiet doesn’t mean it’s not real.
Because honestly, I’ve spent most of my adult life in the Boogiewoods.
I started Gnarwhal in my parents’ garage. Graduated to the second bedroom of our Santa Monica apartment—Dakota and I sleeping on one side of the wall and orders going out from the other side. From there, it was a slightly larger garage in Venice. Still shadows. Still late nights. Still asking myself: Is this what momentum feels like, or just madness?
Eventually, we opened our first café. A real space. Lights. People. The dream, at least from the outside.
And now?
I kind of miss the deep Boogiewoods.
There’s something strange and beautiful about the phase where it’s just you. No audience. No pressure. Nothing to prove, because there’s nothing yet to prove. It’s lonely, for sure. But it’s also clean. Pure. You’re building something no one understands but you, and maybe that’s exactly the point.
When there’s no one watching, there’s no one to perform for. It’s just instinct and energy and coffee at the wrong hours. You don’t even know if what you’re doing is going to work—but that doesn’t stop you.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours lately. The idea that mastery comes from time in. Reps. Discipline. And there’s truth to it, for sure. But I think the story is messier. I think it’s less about 10,000 hours on one thing and more like 10,000 different tries. 10,000 times you say, “Maybe this is the thing,” and 9,999 times it’s not—but one time it is.
It’s not linear. It’s wild and wonky and hopeful and exhausting. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes you’re the lion in the sun. Sometimes you’re the one pacing.
The Boogiewoods isn’t a punishment. It’s a process. It’s where you find out what you’re made of when no one’s around to validate it. And for some of us, it’s the only way we know how to begin.
So if you’re in it—if you’re out there quietly building something no one else can see—keep going. You’re not alone. You’re just early. You’re just in the Boogiewoods. The work is quiet. The vision is big. And not many people see it yet.
But we do.
And that’s enough to keep going.
Love,
Nick