What homecoming actually means

People hear "homecoming" and think about a dance, or a game, or a weekend you fly back for. That's not what I mean by it.

I mean the version where you walk in and your shoulders drop. Where nobody in the room needs you to perform being fine. Where the person doing your hair already knows how you take your part, and you don't have to manage the conversation.

I had rooms like that growing up. A kitchen on a Sunday. A chair on a back porch that a woman ran like a whole institution. Half of why Rags No Riches exists is that I want to build one of those rooms again, on purpose, and not leave it to chance.

Homecoming is the entry point

Every pillar does a job. Homecoming's job is the door. It's how you're received before anything else happens: before the consultation, before the wash, before the work. If the reception is wrong, nothing after it lands right.

That's why it's first, and that's the standard the Homecoming pillar holds the rest of the house to.

What it looks like in practice

Right now, in school, it looks like the community, a small gated Discord where people tell each other where home is. Later it looks like the room itself: when you step inside The Big House, the first thing the space should do is receive you, not sell you.

Homecoming isn't the soft part of the brand. It's the load-bearing part.

Next: the Homecoming pillar · 1,000 hours in public · The Big House