I so rarely wade into local politics, let alone city politics. But I am making an exception for one reason, and one reason alone: A sign.
Origin officially launched a sign in our flagship Los Angeles clinic after a 4.5 year wait. You read that right… 4.5 years. That humble sign is a simple wayfinding logo in a black signage box in our ground floor location.
We spent hundreds of hours of staff time and thousands of dollars in fees to the city, including countless emails with public officials that went unread for months. We learned other signs in our neighborhood got responses like, “This sign is too black against a white backdrop." There’s so much to do in this city, especially now more than ever. Surely our tax money can serve a greater purpose.
We almost gave up on this sign. Almost. But I have learned founders need to be stubborn, and I rode that principled pony all the way to the finish line.
A big thank you to everyone who helped me behind the scenes to get this sign up, including my mom, former architect, and Origin angel investor, Aviva Carmy. If it’s this hard for us, I can’t imagine what it’s like for small businesses in California. Every time I look up at our sign, I’m reminded of that.
PS: I’d love to figure out how to get more involved in LA politics, particularly as we’ve seen our city hit so hard in the past few months. If you’ve ideas, I’m here for it.
PPS: This story is not to be confused with another battle we had in a different city, where we were forced to take down a sign that read “Breaking glass ceilings, healing pelvic floors.” Our neighbors found the language to be problematic for unspecified reasons (side note: can we be grown-ups already and acknowledge that humans have pelvic floors?).