From Friday Emails to Monday Layoffs: How One E-Commerce Experience Made Me Grateful for Stupid Cancer

There was a time I seriously considered joining one of the big e-commerce SaaS platforms. I was deep in conversation with a smart, motivated partner manager—I’ll call her Amanda—about a potential role where I could help nonprofits scale their online impact using the platform’s tech. She was excited about my experience building the Stupid Cancer Store and thought I could bring a fresh perspective.

By Friday, we were trading emails about next steps. By Monday, Amanda and her entire team had been laid off.

Just like that. A whole department wiped out.

I found out when my follow-up email bounced. Then I checked LinkedIn and saw a wave of “open to work” posts from people I had hoped would be my future colleagues.

It felt like the floor had shifted beneath my feet.

At first, I was shocked. Then I felt a strange kind of relief. Not because I didn’t want the job anymore—but because I already had one that mattered.

At that time, I was with Stupid Cancer. We weren’t the biggest org. We didn’t have stock options or kombucha on tap. But what we did have was purpose—and a kind of job security that doesn’t come from venture capital or market share, but from community and clarity of mission.

I thought back to the early days of the Stupid Cancer Store. We built it from scratch—me, in a small TriBeCa office, with better than average level coding skills and a strong belief that cancer patients deserved better swag. Hoodies, mugs, journals, even onesies for babies born to survivors. Everything was personal. Everything was intentional. We didn’t have a marketing budget, but we had heart—and that kept the orders coming.

Over time, I migrated our storefront to a more scalable platform, optimized fulfillment, and expanded the product line. It became a small but mighty revenue stream for the organization. But more than that, it was an extension of our brand. A way for survivors to say, “I’m still here—and I’m repping it.”

The contrast between what I had at Stupid Cancer and what I almost stepped into at the e-comm giant couldn’t have been clearer. One was unpredictable, corporate, and ultimately disposable. The other was gritty, imperfect, and full of purpose.

That Monday morning was a wake-up call—not about ambition, but about values.

I still believe in the power of e-commerce to do good. I still geek out over tools that help small teams punch above their weight. But I’m more cautious now. I ask different questions: What’s the culture like? Who’s protected when things go sideways? Does this platform care about the people behind the stores—or just the stores themselves?

That moment reminded me: security isn’t just a paycheck. It’s knowing that if the world flips on a Monday, you won’t be an afterthought by Tuesday.

And for all its challenges, Stupid Cancer never made me feel disposable.