I have a small business - making artisanal home fragrance products.
A little background, previously I was in sales, made 6 figures but I hated it to the point of constantly suicidal hence I decided to screw it, move home and started this business.
Fast forward, I was lucky the business grew tremendously even with a very lean organisation during covid and to date we pulled > 1m in sales. It’s coming to my 4th year but this year I’m having major loss of motivation.
I’m not happy about how this business is going since I’m doing everything by myself almost (I’m FT; my co-founder PT and another PT staff) and not feeling competitive in the market. I don’t feel the business is that successful since we are small in size and at times feels inferior to my peers who stayed in corporate. Since mid year, I had took the gas pedal off by not putting much effort at all and have been wanting to sell the biz and go back to employment. Naturally, my sales reflects my effort and the biz lost momentum.
Currently I’m at the crossroad to continue by expanding my business (at a big city, think 15x more population while maintaining my current office) or sell my business. I had many prospects fell through the past few months and only have 1 solid offer as of now. The offer is not very attractive, much lower than my asking. The buyer is offering only 1/2 of average net profit from a year with value of physical asset (raw materials + equipments). Bear in mind I have tons of formula for current and new products with strong product and brand recognition.
I don’t know if I should sell simply because of this loss of motivation and loneliness or just pull through. The business is still making money (average 10k/m profit on this low effort year) and realistically going back to employment to start again if I sell my biz I’d only make perhaps 1/2 current profit as the salary. My partner is very supportive of my journey so financially I don’t have much commitments.
Any advice on this please?
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It can help a lot to change the way that you look at your challenges.
Maybe begin by thinking of your business as your “babyStartup.”
And then examine babyStartup’s health and growth. Most of your business related challenges can be solved and there are many professionals that can help you solve them.
The fact that you have a proven track record means that you are thinking more about getting out of a situation that has slowly worn you down and is affecting your overall health. You’re about to “flee” this situation.
That’s not an unusual situation when one person starts a small business and it grows to a size where insisting on doing everything yourself no longer works.
The solution here is to start working on the business instead of in it.
And that means adding people to your team to take care of the routine operational parts. Delegating tasks is not complicated.
Maybe reflect on these questions:
- Do you feel that your business has hit the end of the road - or - it it a lack of time that prevents you from applying your proven “magic touch” to bring back your loyal followers and attract new one? Only you can make that decision.
- You are in a state of mind that is stretched to the limit. Do you believe that relieving you from many of the routine tasks will give you the time you need to get back to your creative self?
These are not easy questions to answer. Having built a “viable and sustainable” business is a big achievement. Not many startups reach this point.
So priority #1 is your health. And if you decide to flee and regroup, don’t look at this as a failure but rather keep in mind that next time, you will want to think about managing the business.
You know how to talk to your target audience so that skill will remain and be invaluable in your next startup.
And what is it exactly that you mean when you say:
“My partner is very supportive of my journey so financially I don’t have much commitments.”
Do you mean that you are free to focus all your attention to the business and not be concerned about your basic needs?
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10k monthly profit means you could sell for around 400k. It’s a big lump sum. I sold my ecommerce store and moved on to other things. Stores can fail, so selling can be a good idea for some.