A tectonic shift at Well Built

Read time: 6.2 minutes

Hey y'all. Ceci and Mia here.

This is the hardest newsletter we've ever written.

How do you tell 6,000 people who've trusted you, learned with you, and cheered you on that everything's about to change?

Well, we’re guessing you just... say it 😳

So, here it goes.

We're shutting down our beloved product Well Built Library 🥲

And that’s not all.

Mia is leaving Well Built—and the Workday ecosystem entirely 😭

We know. It’s tectonic.

So while you take a collective breath with us, keep reading.

We cover everything in this newsletter.

What happened to Well Built Library? (RIP 🪦)

The whole purpose of the Library was to share our hard-won consulting knowledge with the Workday ecosystem at scale. Package up everything we knew, make it searchable and beautiful, and get it into your hands 🎁

But it didn't quite pan out that way.

After writing 300+ lessons we're incredibly proud of (it’s seriously amazing stuff), we realized something painful: the Library wasn't as sustainable, scalable, agile, or elegant as we expected. You know—all the “Well Built” attributes we named our company after 😅

The Library was completely hinged on the two of us. And we were (as many of you resonated with in our announcement webinar) burnt to a crisp. Turns out, we're not immune to burnout either.

We made one big mistake when creating Well Built: we didn't scale with PEOPLE. It was us against the world with vetted contractors we knew and trusted.

It was a joy to wear all the hats—we truly love learning. But that was also our downfall.

Midway through filming, the cracks started to show. The UI was changing as we were filming, and another big UI change is slated for early 2027 with the "new skin" of Sana—which meant our videos might not live on as long as we'd like. We were the bottleneck for every piece of content, and we couldn't duplicate ourselves fast enough because we hadn't invested in a team earlier on. And the production quality (you know quality is a HUGE value of ours) took too long for all the changes and volume we needed to create.

Our solution wasn't practicing what we preach.

Are we devastated about abandoning our baby? 100%.

But C.S. Lewis said it better than we could: When you realize you're on the wrong road, progress doesn't mean charging ahead. It means having the courage to turn around and walk back to the right path.

(With Aneel returning to Workday as CEO, sounds like we aren’t the only ones 😉)

In this more aligned decision to seek a new path forward, we feel major relief.

We’ll give ourselves this credit… we nailed the problem in this ecosystem: premium content to deeply learn the Workday system doesn’t exist! We know you all feel it.

But, we didn't nail the delivery. So, we’re pivoting.

In all this reflection… another change bubbled to the surface…

A Message from Mia 📝

Dear beloved Well Built newsletter subscribers!

This is a tender one to write.

After almost eight years in the Workday ecosystem—and two deeply formative years building Well Built Solutions alongside Ceci—I’m stepping into my next chapter. I’m leaving Well Built, and our wonderful Workday ecosystem altogether 🥲

The truth is, somewhere in the midst of the entrepreneurial grind, I lost my passion for software configuration. While there are elements of this work that I enjoyed—the problem solving, the learning, the sharing—at the end of the day, we’ve got this one, precious life! And I’m ready to leap into the unknown, and build a life that sets my heart on fire ❤️‍🔥

In this business, I’ve built some incredible, hard-earned skills. I learned how to let go of control 🤪, work on a team 🤝, stay committed to a vision 👁️, and follow through 💥. I am SO grateful to take these skills forward with me.

As for Well Built Library… I see it as a major success—anddd many lessons learned. Ceci and I brought an idea to life that required us to swim totally upstream. We overcame legal, technical, and logistical obstacles again and again. We figured it all out!!!

Ultimately, late in the game, we realized it wasn’t a product we could sustain. Despite the fact that we had 15 customers put their weight behind us, and 15 more with it on the roadmap later this year 💔

This showed us that Well Built’s foundation is strong, and I am so proud to have built it alongside Ceci.

And yes—Ceci and I are absolutely still friends 😁 I’ll be cheering her and Well Built on ALL the way, and I expect ya’ll to RALLY behind her as she takes this team to new heights.

As for me… I feel ready to explore what’s next with curiosity and courage. I don’t have every detail mapped out yet (that’s part of the adventure!), but I know it’s time ❤️

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for being part of this journey. Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for learning with me. Thank you for building with us.

I’ll always be grateful for this chapter—and I’m excited for what’s ahead for all of us.

With love and deep appreciation,

Mia

What we learned from all of this…

As we shared this news with our WBL customers over the past few weeks, something beautiful happened. They each had different versions of the same message:

"Good for you for taking a shot and knowing when to pivot."

"That's entrepreneurship!"

"Honestly, we just want our 2 unicorns living well... so this is actually GOOD news."

🫶🫶🫶

The kindness and unwavering support has been so touching. We're so grateful for how you’ve received our work up to this point.

And what became crystal clear throughout all of this: the RELATIONSHIPS we've built in the past 2 years—with all of Y'ALL—are our greatest asset 🥹❤️

We’re rebuilding around that truth.

What’s changing (and what we’re doubling down on)

So here's what's changing:

Well Built is building a team 🤝 For real this time. No more "just the two of us" approach (clearly 🥲). We're adding new people to the fray who can help us deliver at the quality and pace you deserve without burning ourselves to the ground.

We're doubling down on what’s working: the newsletter 🗞️ The thing you already know and love. The thing that's become your trusted source for Workday configuration wisdom. The thing that's made people ask "What did Well Built say?" when your internal team asks you for a release summary you have absolutely no time for.

To keep delivering the quality and depth you've come to expect—the relatable voice, the spoon-fed solutions, the quirks and gotchas and complete strategic thinking—we're introducing a premium tier ✨

We know. When we said "free forever”, we meant it. But we also said we'd deliver the best Workday configuration content out there. Turns out, we can't do both. We’re choosing quality over the promise.

If you're disappointed, we totally get it. But we believe the people who care most about doing Workday right and understand the value we bring to the ecosystem will see why this is necessary. Details on pricing and what's included in each tier coming soon.

Beyond the newsletter, we're also working on specialized training packages (prioritizing our former WBL customers first) and re-opening our post-production consulting shop for AMS and phaseX projects. More on all of this in the coming months as things take shape.

And those 300+ lessons we wrote? We'll be repurposing them to give you this amazing knowledge in a new way (across the newsletter and elsewhere) 😌

Here’s what's NOT changing…

Our commitment to quality 💎

Well Built stands out in the ecosystem for its reliable and relatable content.

You know you can trust the information. We look at things up, down, and sideways. We tell you about the quirks, the gotchas, the hacks, the complete solution, and the strategy.

The content is relatable because it’s written in an approachable, engaging voice. And it's relevant in that you're reading about how it applies to YOUR org—not just dry documentation that YOU have to figure out how to apply.

That's not going anywhere.

What we’d love from you…

Stay subscribed. And stay tuned! We'll be sharing details on the newsletter premium tier launch (happening in March or early April) soon.

Rally behind this pivot with us. We're building something sustainable this time. Something that fully practices what we preach.

Send Mia off with a farewell message ❤️ I know it would mean the world to her.

Thank you for being part of this journey. Thank you for trusting us with your Workday challenges.

Thank you for letting us be your Workday config lifeline.

The best is yet to come.

With gratitude (and more than a few tears),

Ceci