When she first created the lifestyle website named "Preserve," "The Age of Adaline" star Blake Lively had high hopes that it would be life-changing and become a positive influence on people.
"I never thought I would be able to do that, to take the site dark and to say, 'You know what? I haven't created something that is as true and impactful as I know it can and will be,'" Lively said in an interview with Vogue.
Now that she has taken it down, the actress suspects that "people are just going to have a heyday with this," but she would rather brave the criticisms and snide remarks now since she has bigger plans in the future.
"I'm going to take this hit, and the only way I can prove all the negative reactions wrong is to come back with a plan that will rock people," she said. "And I have that plan. And I'm so excited about it, and that's what gave me the courage to do this."
A lot of people actually criticized Preserve when it was first launched, and people were also confused what it stands for. "I never thought people would think Preserve had something to do with jam," the new mom laughingly said. Some even thought that it's a pale imitation of Gwyneth Paltrow's website Goop.
But Lively mulls that the site's failure had something to do with the fact that it was launched way before its time.
"We launched the site before it was ready," Lively admitted, "and it never caught up to its original mission: It's not making a difference in people's lives, whether superficially or in a meaningful way."
As for her next project, Lively said that it would be somewhat similar to Preserve, but she will be developing a more streamlined approach.
"Our goal has always been to touch millennials through storytelling, and the idea is to create a shoppable lifestyle," Lively explained. "We've focused in so much that it's actually very simple, it's very clean, it's very direct."
Failure is not something Lively likes to dwell on, since she knows that every good venture comes with that risk.
"The only time I've ever done something and felt real reward is when I've done something that's incredibly risky, because without great risks it is impossible to have huge success," she said. "This feels like something I really have to do."
