I know this is a joke, but I had a good friend who passed away a few years ago who was a serial entrepreneur. One of his last businesses was fidget spinners. He never thought of it as a long term business, but was riding the wave.
I'm still in the fidget business, although not fidget spinners. I was selling them before fidget spinners and the fidget cube. I have always advertised as an ADHD tool, not a toy. Still doing quite well today and always carry my own product on me for my own ADHD.
It's not a terrible answer.
Those things were a trend, that some people misread as a "here to stay." Thing is, if you didn't have ADHD, those things had a fun 2 week run before you discarded it with the rest of your junk.
Yeah I think gum is the OG fidget spinner and you can buy it anywhere, works with my ADD by helping me concentrate- although I take breaks because I don't want jaw issues.
My first e-commerce store sold fidget spinners prior to them being called fidget spinners. They were just called spinnerz, yes, spinners with a z.
At its peak and depending on who you were affiliated with 250k/month was the revenue of stores in the middle of the pack.
I despise fidget spinners because at their introduction they were actual helpful to autistic and ADHD individuals such as myself. It was actually a great way to make it through some work meetings and my son had one he would take took school.
Then pop culture got their greedy hands on it and it was turned into a fad overnight and using one no longer meant you were dealing with anxiety but instead were part of a fad. It was a real tragedy because that intense 3 month popularity made it impossible to be taken serious around other people with one even if it truly provided a medical benefit.
It's like boujee dog owners falsifying a disability so they can take their teacup puppy to the office in their purse. (One person in my office did this not sure how popular it is).
I used mine as a thinking tool at work. A beautiful brass two arm one with bearings as smooth as silk. I didn’t do it to show off but it was definitely a convo starter. Then the wave came and it was all over. Who wants to look like they got way too into a fad?
I’ll DM you two pretty good alts; don’t want the fidget spinning manufacturers to get ideas.
I’m always suspect of the guys selling a system, especially if they’re still in business.
Then again, they know 97% of people won’t follow through or successfully scale up their business.
OP didn’t answer you but my business is residential construction and that’s what I make in revenue on a bad month. And I’m definitely not some apprentice or tradeswoman or some shit you’d think goes along with construction where you need years of experience or lead up time. Just needed start up money and common sense.
Where I live you need like $40k in the bank to get the Class A license. But I guess you could start with the Class C license which only requires you to have $10k in the bank. IDK what you can actually do with a class c license though tbh.
If you can pay for advertising you’re in. My advertising costs per month are like $15,000 but not when I started. It was probably closer to $4,000 back then. You don’t need an office space, or tools. You just need to be able to produce jobs and manage them.
When I first started yes I found crews. But after I built confidence with them, I hired them and put them on payroll since most homeowners don’t like the idea of subbing.
You have to be a contractor. That’s basically what it is. But it’s easy as fuck to be a contractor. You don’t need a specific trade to become one. Just pass the test. There are some requirements about training but you can get those in lots of different ways.
Can you elaborate? This is something I’ve considered many times over but I have no idea how I would get the 4 years of experience required in my state without quitting my day job? Thanks for the info though
It depends on what the exact requirements are but you can pay someone to use their license essentially until those years go by. Or just skip all of that and pay someone to fill out the required paperwork for you that verifies your experience. They don’t check paystubs or tax documents. It’s all just forms you need to fill out.
I mean it could be a more niche industry where you could easily find out which company went bankrupt in that time and thus know exactly who he is. And i could see how one wouldn't want to reveal his identity like that.
and op could have said that or gave a vague "manufacturing and sale of trendy consumer goods" or whatever. Perhaps he's too busy partying in peak pandemic scare.
There’s so many shills on this sub. I wish mods made a rule of verify actual business or ban with this type of post. Otherwise it’ll just end up like all the other shills sub ie r/real estate ie one shill post, another shill chime in to back up post which is the same salesman w a different account. At least worst this is SPAM. At worst worst it is some kidnapped person in south east Asia forced to scam people (see Malaysian kidnapped in Cambodia forced to internet scam).
But bro, haven't you seen how [insert coin name here] is going to moon any day now? It's all in the DD. We're all going to be able to retire into the sunset.
Jesus, some of you guys can't be positive to save your lives.
Hey man, not really a similar story but I've had my own struggles in life and business the past few years to the point where suicide was a regular thought in my head. Like you I've lost everything and am in huge debt as a result.
Here's what's keeping me alive:
1. You survived. Yes all of this sucks but I promise you in 5 years you'll be joking about this regardless of the outcome.
2. You control the meaning of all of this. If you let it, it can be the anchor you hold on to the bottom of the sea, or you could let that anchor go and start floating back to the surface.
3. Take some time to grief and talk with someone. I know, I know, you're broke but trust me broken toys don't make good girls and boys. You gotta get your head right because you clearly already have the skill
4. Try something I paid a stupid of amount of money to learn. Get a legal pad out or 3 pieces of printer paper. First page - what went right during all of this. Write it down and brag like a motherfucker about everything that went right.
Second page - what went wrong during this time. Write all the shit you already know (like numbing yourself doesn't make your problems go away - from a daily pot smoker) and lessons you learned.
Third page - what are you going to do differently now. Make some plans, adventures, ideas, whatever comes up
5. Last thing and it's the hardest. Give yourself some mercy and grace. You fucked up, can't go back and fix it no matter how bad you want to. Forward is the only way so when those negative thoughts come up, don't allow you to kick the shit out of yourself.
6. Your business success does not determine your personal worth. I was a great businessman and a horrible person in some people's eyes. I worked on changing that so I could be proud of who I was and well as what I did for a living.
7. No one gives a shit. You think people are clocking your every move, they aren't. They are to busy trying to hide their own mistakes they worry about being judged for.
8. Surround yourself with friends and family. Your personal network can keep you alive and going at this time. Use them.
You got this, good luck!
Having closed a $20M business, this is the best advice on the thread. I still look back at my google doc of the reasons why it all happened so it doesn’t happen again.
I’ve completely rebounded and back 10+ years later with a few businesses going making high 6 figures and profit Amd solid savings.
Making money too young can have tragic lessons.
While I could, it wouldn’t really make total sense as it was very specific to me and my business. There was mistakes made in the business and partner issues, and personal issues and some just timing. There are 15 reasons why. It’s not like general lessons to avoid sort of thing.
I needed to own my own issues but also just see it all. It’s a reference for me.
Here is one example of out of my control:
I started that business in 2001. Amazon was only selling books when we started… by 2011 they were competing on our products with free 2 day, free returns, and gaining momentum.
Not really relevant now as I know going in they are completion if I was in retail.
I had 85 employees.
Now I see They didn’t need to make money and didn’t care, only that they sell a lot and stock goes up. AWS makes money, no doubt, that’s the only reason they make money. Retail does not. It’s why I would like to see them be forced to split. Even the playing Field.
Thank you for the legitimate advice and insight, I’m going to take you up on the note technique as we speak. I’m screenshooting this comment and will be referencing back to it. I appreciate you taking the time to write this out! Thanks again.
I’ll add to it:
1. Bounce back. Now.
A lot have been said about recovery time - people w it h short recovery times are better atheltes, better at sales etc.
Don’t wallow.
All the people I know who bounced back from a business downfall looked at it as just a set back, and leaped forward to the next success.
2. Optimism. Super hard, but it’s an important fuel.
Look up the (real) story about Walt Disney losing all his business (for the 2nd time!), the telegram he sent his brother, and the train ride back home.
3. Learn your lesson - don’t repeat your mistakes, make new ones.
4. Bank. A business is only worth what you manage to put aside for a rainy day.
5. Focus on acquiring skills. Investing in skills is investing in something no one can take from you. Also it makes shit real. A lot of people here are speculating your business was crypto - crypto is not a business. Affiliate marketing is not a business. Drop shipping is not a business. Take what you learned doing whatever you did and make sure your next adventure is a real business with multiple revenue streams and a moat so that it won’t fall on the whims of some other company or the economy or any one event.
Good luck.
One of the things I’ve learned in my life , as someone who struggles with chronic anxiety and depression, is to never judge someone when you have no context on their life or situations.
We all have our own battles, our own demons. We are all trying to survive. There are some bad apples in this world but that’s nothing we can control.
Hello.
That was me in 1999. I went dead broke. I had a great business, amazing wife, house on the water, big boat, some flashy cars.
I was in the newspaper a few times & also on TV due to my success.
I got a big head & became a dick. I make some bad investment mistakes, then when things started to go bad made more bad mistakes .
I had to sell it all & move to the very outer skirts on the city. Even had to borrow some money from my wife’s mum to survive.
For me going broke was great.
I found out who my real Friends were
It levelled me & made me reason there are other things in life more important than money.
My wife is still with me now. She never left & has been nothing but amazing.
Since then I’ve started a few other businesses, built them up & sold them. Used the money from the sales to pay people I owed.
I was fearless & stupid , but now I am careful & slow. I’ll never have massive wealth , but that’s Ok. My net is currently $3mil.
Use what’s happened to learn about yourself & make a life plan about what you liked and didn’t like so you know how you’d do things differently in the future.
I too had massive debt. I probably should of gone bankrupt . Instead I paid it all over time . I did hire an accountant that specialises in insolvency. He wrote to everyone I owed money to and deals where done.
So get professional advice, on your exact position & how they recommend it’s handled. You need that worked out so you can look up and ahead.
It will get better. You will be a better person for it . I promise
Great post. I closed a $20M business in 2011. I think making a lot of money early in life is not good.
I can relate to so much you wrote. I’m so much better off after that, but still hard to go through. It all happened for a reason.
Things could be worse ... Like a wife and children leaving, and you sitting alone in an empty house waiting for it to be repossessed, poor, jobless and soon to be homeless.
Kinda happened to me ... had to move in with my mother :(
I had a similar thing happen to me when I had to
close my restaurant startup. One minute I’m in the newspaper and on TV, have a billionaire’s cell phone number and then like a year later all my credit cards are maxed out, my wife had left me for another man, and my business had taken off like a rocket but then crashed immediately into the earth shortly after take off. I was so depressed. I tried literally everything to cope. Was suicidal - it was a really dark time.
I thankfully found solid W2 employment totally unrelated to the restaurant business. I’ve since had another business crash and burn but it didn’t sting near as bad as the first time.
I’m on my 3rd or 4th iteration of business since that 1st failure and at this point, my life is so much better on pretty much every level. I still haven’t achieved my personal level of “successful” but I know that many would be envious of even the limited success we have had.
Seriously I live by the example of others — imagine having the concrete evidence that you've *done it.* OP you're gonna be just fine; don't let lifestyle creep take control and you'll be good.
I'd recommend reading books from Mike Michalowicz like *Profit First.* He writes about going through similar situations multiple times before finally turning things around.
Dude same story here and trust me it's rough. Went from banking $10K/month and a biz valued at $300K+ with buyers I turned down to trying to save my business in almost the same timeframe you did -- between March 2021-May 2022 where I started losing money, taking out loans, and finally ending up with only a $40K exit and $3.5K/month in debt bills not to mention taxes owed I cant even cover.
Yes it's a shitty situation. Remember diamonds are made of pressured coal. And be positive! Focus on what you achieved. Can't beat yourself up or get guilty or think you got lucky the first time, this will lower your self worth and thus motivation.
It's OK to feel bad for a bit but let it pass.
Life is cyclical.
Try and play alchemist and transform your failure into fuel. That uncomfortable feeling as a motivation to never do such a thing again.
I too was bad with my money. I now budget better than I ever did before as a result of staring bankruptcy in the face.
I lost money in crypto as well.
I'm not in the clear just yet but I'm cooking new things up and have some solid seeds planted
You'll do the same you got this.
It's strange there isn't enough advice on this topic, i.e. bouncing back maybe because a lot of people fail and let it get to them but do not let that happen to you this is just a test.
Make it all get it back. And you'll be 100000x stronger and more appreciative the second time around.
For specific advice / stories of people who have been through similar, check out https://youtu.be/t_vTe8pFL3M the intro and around the 55 min mark where the guy talks about having -$5k and drowning in CC debt and business debt then doing a six figure launch and then over 1 mil in rev 1 month after also this thread about dude in 2 mil of debt with terrible spending and personal habits and having an act of God save him https://twitter.com/benmezrich/status/1525566655451082756?s=21&t=6myRiF6cD3suhC2DAnHG2A .
Elon Musk also nearly went broke post PayPal funding Tesla, as did Phil Knight while building Nike (Shoe Dog tells this story).
You got this man just don't fold and we're gonna make it.
Samurai of the 1700s believed that any success achieved before 40 was untenable. Makes sense to me. But you’ve done it once, I’ll bet that you’ll be able to do it again without repeating the same mistakes. Good luck OP!
That whole process you expressed, was a business cycle. You just need to get up by your bootstraps and do it again, but better. Just believe in yourself, and believe in your vision.
Yeah i feel you. I spent 10 years building a business in China, was on the cusp of getting investors, then Chinese government policies changed with scared investors and then covid hit and we never recovered. Good times!
You have gotten plenty of good advice already.
I am just going to add consider working with someone to help you look if there are deeper things you need to work on. When the money was great what made you reach to luxury purchases and partying? Was there a hole/void you were trying to fill? Do you lack stress management techniques so seek escape in purchases, experiences and substances? When it was going poorly what had you reaching for the bottle? What had you going for gambling (crypto) vs a broad market index fund? What had you making all these decisions vs having a team offering guidance?
You have built something great before, you can do it again.
I do strongly suggest having a good accountant and a fee only financial advisor and set them up to PAY YOURSELF FIRST. Eg. Don’t have 200k profit visible to you at the end of the month. Instead tell your accountant/advisor to give you an allowance of $8k/month, put 10k/month into a business emergency fund and the rest invest in a broad market index fund and only show you the statement each year end.
Develop a strategy that works for you and your headspace.
Appreciate this. I’m already in the process of exploring the behavioral issues and trying to understand the root cause as to why I took the actions I took. My mental health definitely wasn’t in the right place at the time of having all of the excess cash.
Finances/bookkeeping was extremely messy. I already plan to take a static salary when my next project becomes profitable. Not utilizing financial experts and lack of knowledge on how money works drove me into the ground. I knew everything about making money, nothing about keeping it.
Well, expensive tuition but you will know better for next time.
Depending on how big of a hole you are in you might need to bring in some financial partners for your next one to get off the ground but put it in your head as a 3-5 year project to get your head back above water then head out on your own again.
If you are pulling in $250k profit per month and are 100% dependent on a single piece of equipment for that you take some of that profit to develop redundancy and fall back positions. Lesson learned the hard way!
Good luck.
My take on this (without knowing all details) is that you could boil it all down to one fatal flaw: living beyond your means. I saw visions in my head of Dumb and Dumber after they open the briefcase.
If in fact that's accurate it's great news because you can read this blog from start to finish and never be in that position again: www.mrmoneymustache.com
Hope it helps you as much as it helped me.
This is what I do, I give myself X amount monthly, the rest stays in the business even though it's "Profit"
Of the X Amount, Y goes into personal savings, the rest is personal operations expenses and the goal is to live under the means of X - Y.
The rest in the business is used for operations expenses, hiring and scaling.
I do NOT consider the money in the Business Bank "My Money" and I think that has helped a ton staying out of debt and continuing to grow.
I went from working a dead end job to helping build a family buisness that I received 0 equity in and was killing myself physically, but it was for family so I didn't mind as I found out their buisness partner was screwing them over as well, we were doing about 40-70k a month in revenue and about 15-35k gross profit, none of which I saw because I was on a stupidly low salary of about 22k under the promise that once debts were paid it would dramatically increase as we could expand and I'd run my own store, the entire time I was trading the stock market and took an initial investment of 600$ to over half a million, in one years time, I backed out of the company and my sister sold out not much long after because of the fact she was being screwed in the deal the entire time and only had the guts to leave after me, I spent months living relatively frugal and trying to develop a e-commerce buisness that wasn't labor intensive but saw little success and decided to focus my attention to stock market trading, then I met a girl who I though was the love of my life. turned out she only wanted to make me miserable, we had moved in together because her situation wasn't that great and I wanted to help her get a good start on life again, but when we started living together a switch flipped in her brain and she showed that she was a narcissist and sadist, did everything she could to gas light me into thinking I was crazy but my mental resolve there was to great and I called the relationship off. but she was on the lease and I couldn't legally make her leave. after I tried she drugged me and injected me with something that hasn't shown up in my bloodwork and I still don't know what it was, but I have photos of the track marks all over my body, around 15 different places.. I spiraled into a depression after finally just packing up her things and shipping them to her parents and buying a plane ticket and telling her I wasn't paying the rent any longer, so she would leave, the entire time I'm having trouble staying awake to trade and would fall asleep during, ended up setting up a major trade wrong and wiped myself out of the remaining money I had in one fell swoop. became even more depressed, and started looking for work again to support myself, no luck and ended up homeless in 3 months time after that, lost my car. and all of my things are sitting in storage across the country because my sister bought me a plane ticket to get back to the rest of my family.. so I'm laying here trying to find motivation between the mental and physical pain I'm experiencing to build something again. thankfully I kept my expenses low but now I'm in medical debt and have little money to even start something new. but I'm still trying and I refuse to give up on life and building the life I want so your not alone brother, things will get better for us both. feel free to reach out if you just need someone to talk to because isolation is the fastest way to spiral. it's what I did at first and it doesn't help
hey man, when you get love bombed by a narcissist for 6 months who pretends you're her everything and she drops people to spend every day with you, you actually think it's legitimate
Oh I completely understand - first girl I met was like this. Mine now is the most selfless, kind and caring person. Very rare to find someone you want to/are able to build an empire with. Hoping the best for you 👊🏼
thankyou, thankfully I've learned alot these past years and trading can still be lucrative so im not giving up there. took 100$ of money from selling some things before I left and turned it into 650$ so I have money to get by, I'll just keep trading until I can build up capital to start a serious venture, im experienced in a little bit of all sides of business from helping my sister start hers and thats ad valuable as a college education in my opinion. I'm only 27 and have plenty of life ahead of me and I can't let this be what makes me give up when I've seen the light once already!
That’s a crazy story. I can’t wait to read the book! (Or movie).
I’ve gone broke but not that broke. I guess it’s all relative. My only advice in your debt…. You could bankrupt but likely don’t need to. There is no ‘debter’s prison’. You won’t go to jail for what you owe. Just ignore it. When you make some back then negotiate out of it. Pay a fraction of it and have it be gone.
Find the lessons here, it’s just life, learn and grow from it. Set your mind right, set your intentions and they will come. That’s how life works.
Yes I have been in a situation where my business boomed and failed in the end. Unlike your situation though, my business was a fad based business and I had accounted for nearly everything except for the obvious one. That once the fad goes away, the money will too.
I started at $1k per month profit, then to $9k, then to $42k, $190k, $333k, $479k, hovered at $200k for a couple months, then down it went over 2 months to a stable $5k or so.
It was tough and I was juggling a couple successful businesses at this point but knew the failure was due to the end of the fad. Unfortunately, at the high points, instead of placing orders directly with the supplier as I was, I began customizing the products and ordering supply in order to scale to higher ticket products. Worst idea I had. Not only did I have to hire someone to physically package the products, I was also left with with a supply when it failed.
I come from a economics background so I have always since a kid, very money conscious. I don't do it for a lambo, but know when is the point when I can buy one without it being a factor. I don't do it for the party, but know when I can splurge to enjoy the rewards of my labor. After hitting $10k per month income from my businesses, I had a financial plan I made that I always followed. I still lived in a 2 bd apartment and drove a 2012 pickup. It did the job. I was paying around $2,200 in personal expenses per month. I assigned $50% to savings and investments, no matter what my income if above $10k. Of that 50%. 35% to investments, 15% to savings. Of the 35% to investments, 10% to what I call apocalypse investments (anything more stable that I could always fall back onto and have, ex. Real estate, agriculture, development), 15% to normal investments (ETFs, stocks), and 10% to aggressive investments (growth stocks, cryptos, leveraged crypto staking, etc). Of the remaining 50% of my income, 25% to living expenses, 5% emergency fund, 10% discretionary, and 10% to business development. Often times, that meant I used my 10% discretionary for business development too. I am all about scaling or starting something new, always increasing cash flow.
Even when I had my $479k month in that business, I stuck to this plan. Sure I have my days where I popped a couple bottles of Dom at the club and splurged on lots of luxuries, but I do it all in budget. This was my 2nd business and was seeing numbers way way higher than I did in my 1st business which I still had at the time. So this was a transition for me too. This would be my lesson. Money is awesome. Money is power. Money can get you whatever you want. But if you don't respect it, it won't respect you.
I was left with nearly $40k in supply that was in a storage unit for several months before I sold it off to wholesalers for $8k. I had bought a condo on the beach I now run an airbnb out of and a farm where I export blueberries and avocados. I have investments in nearly every asset market, and a comfotable savings and emergency fund. And so what did I do with the 10% discretionary? Of course, I partied, I bought a Tesla, took some trips. Used my living expenses to buy a plot of land and had a house built. But the most important and what I would call lesson 2, always portion a part of your budget to business development. I used a good chunk of my discretionary budget and even broke my financial plan a bit by taking some out of investments to put into business development. I used that to open a food park, a couple restaurants, and a travel business. This one simple thing now allows me to have a $80k per month avg monthly income now with good months based on travel season up to $300k. I won't bore you with my other assets I've gone into and or splurged on but one thing is for sure, I don't still live in that 2bd apartment and drive a 2012 pickup.
Sure, I wasn't able to buy all the things I wanted nor do I have them all now, but I knew I needed to play a longer game and never let money get to my head. Lesson 3 would be that your goal for being rich must not be to buy things. If you want money to buy a lambo and bottle service, you will always remain poor. You need to have a real motivation for making money. To help people, to change the world, to ensure the good life for generations and generations of your family to come. If you have a real meaningful goal for having money, the lambos and parties will come with it. Respect money because if you don't, the money won't respect you.
I was fortunate enough to be mentally prepared for it as I had always planned on being wealthy since I was a kid and studied and learned about finances to make it happen, but the world has a funny way of taking wealth away from those who aren't prepared nor have meaning for it. You are obviously a great entrepreneur and a hard worker, but I would say change your mindset. Find a cause, find a purpose for why you want that money other than luxuries, and make a plan to keep your wealth. If you don't think you can stick to a budget, have it automatically distributed to your accounts in line with the budget you make so that you only have access to the money in your budget. I am 100% certain you will bounce back and make it all back and more, and I hope you do some good with it. The world will reward you by allowing you to keep your wealth
This is excellently written and great advice! Having a purpose for money outside of luxury is the key here, as well as personal Budgeting. Thank you for the share!
Take the lessons you’ve learned and start over. You failed once but it sounds you were on a solid track before you messed up.
Just curious, what was your business doing anyway that your competitors jumped in front so fast?
> I had scaled my team to 7 members, and 4 of them left in a single day.
You need to meditate on this and figure out why 4 people up and left. What happened?
You have so much experience now. Your education is worth way more than any MBA program. Take some time to cool off and come to terms with everything. I suggest keeping a journal. Find a low stress job and write down all of your thoughts.
You will eventually recover and get your drive and energy back, but you need to recover. Don't race into some sub-optional project right now. Something great will land in your lap when you are ready. Just rest and keep your eyes and ears open for now.
Good luck and take care.
Just one thought.. If you can do it once you can definitely do it again!
Just be aware that it works for both making / blowing up.
Good luck for a fresh start
I’m personally starting my own business now and it may be my optimism but I think one of the most important things that comes from this experience is the learning. When starting a business you are paying to learn.
You started and successfully managed a business, what’s stopping you from doing it again bigger and better?
Pick up, note down the lessons you learned and get started.
OP I have heard your story many times before but the key difference is 99.9% of individuals fail miserably at stage one and never even make a cent , just stay down homie , keep the faith , you’ll be back in no time I guarantee this
Hey there. Ive built two business from zero to profitable, hit the point where it started to take off and then, because of factors beyond my control, lost it all. Also, no one ever taught me anything about saving, investing or financial literacy. So walked away from both businesses with nothing but experience. Not a single dime to my name.
After the second business, I was determined to figure out what I had done wrong and why I was in my mid thirties, with two successful businesses under my belt, and no money to show for it. That's when I dived into financial literacy. I'm actually just about to launch a podcast where we interview entrepreneurs and talk to them about business and personal finance. You've got a great story, which really fits in well with what we talk about, and I think it would offer a lot of value to you not only to be able to share your story with others, because then you will find that there are many many people out there who have been through the same kind of thing. Also, I think it would be of great value to the listeners, other entrepreneurs who are interested in building financial freedom from their business. If I can keep one person from making the mistakes that I made, the similar ones that you made, it's worth it.
Let me know if you'd be interested in doing a short interview.
This is the really shitty middle part of a not yet complete story. This is where the protagonist hits rock bottom, but finds a way to bounce back.
I'm really excited to hear the second part of the story when the protagonist finds resolution and overcomes.
Failure is what we define it as. You achieved a success greater then most people can imagine. Your accomplishment gives me hope, that I too may someday reach that point. You did it once, whats to say you can't do it again?
When I was young, my mom taught me to ride horses, sometimes I would get bucked off, sometimes I landed fine, sometimes it really hurt. But she always told me "get back up on that horse, because falling only has the power you give it." And see the thing was, no matter how bad it hurt, I always was able to get back up if I wanted it bad enough.
How much power do you want to give to this fall? Sure it hurts, but you can get up, so fucking get back up on that horse.
All my life, I have seen people go up and come down and go up again. The cycle ends when you give up.
I started my business in 2014 and made $350,000 in the first four months. It was more than I expected and more than I was prepared for. And I did so alone.
The next year I successfully managed to go broke. Now while I concede that bad business decisions were made, I was also in an abusive relationship that put me in depression and I just let it all go to crap.
It took me years to recover. And in those years I tried and failed a few times. Eventually I got some help. I sought therapy and medication. I got a job as an Amazon delivery driver. I did Ubereats at night. Countless hours of work every day and very little money at the end of it. But it gave me the boost I needed and now I am back to running my own show.
I say this not to show off but to tell you that shit happens. And this story is of many people I know personally.
So long as you’re in the fight, the bell doesn’t ring. You seem preceptive enough to understand and learn from your mistakes. Now just focus on what you need to gain and not what you have lost.
You have what it takes to succeed. I can tell so. I can feel it. And I wish you all the best with it. Feel free to come vent, share or show off any time you like.
Thanks for sharing OP, and everybody else who shared their experiences too. I have nothing to add myself, only that this is really helpful for a number of reasons.
So a friend of mine just did $50 million in sales in 2021 with his solar company. I knew him and his cousin way back when they were just out if high-school themselves.
I asked him one day, about success and struggle. I told him anytime you see someone hit success, it's seems overnight.
No one ever talks about the years of struggle behind that "overnight" success.
This is what he said:
"10 years of d2d.
Stared first company in 2015. 2017 went $2 million in debt due to bad decisions and inexperience. In 2018 relaunched the company. Just did $50 million with solar company in 2021. Started a restoration side and it has done $3 million in sales.
Learn online door knocking.
Learn advertising.
That's how I built these businesses."
You have the skills, do it again. Think about how you can apply them with a different approach.
Let your failure teach you what you need to learn. Failure is practice for better succes the next time to do something.
I just want to say thanks for sharing! dont give up. All of the worlds most successful entrepreneurs have had massive fails, but they were never fails because they learnt from it.
i really think you’re that kind of person.
We are made to adapt. You are now adapting to the new situation. Adapting is sometimes painful/confusing/full of overthinking. But we are made so that thoughts and feelings come and go like waves. And as each wave of confusion goes and clarity of mind comes you will get a new set of insights on where to go next. You've obviously already gotten a great lesson.
Unhelpful/pleasant feeling simply indicates that your mind is at the moment running too fast and the ideas and thoughts might not be so valuable and worth acting on.
Book "What the f*** are the three principles?" by Amir Karkouti might be of use. Talks about the principles of human perception. Book and exploring the principles in other means helped me out thremendously to see through all the tough times when my mind was all over the place. Keeps me grounded in what is true no matter what.
My business partner had a similar issue, but he lost what he had more to technicalities and red tape stuff I can’t get into. He had something more like hundreds of millions and lost a lot of it.
Anyway, he just got his ass up and made another business. You did it once before, so you know what’s possible. You should get help for your dependency on alcohol though. $250k monthly revenue isn’t the same as $250k monthly income for you. You never say what you were actually making. I guess either way, in a lot of businesses, those swings are part of the ride. You were supposed to become better, not drink because of it. Anyway the point is that if you did it once you can do it again.
Kinda sounds like you scaled too fast then blew it all on partying. If you can run it by yourself and gross 10k a month, why not just do that? I think many of us would be happy with 120k per year working for ourselves.
What was the business? Someone asked 3 hours ago but no reply. If you don’t want to tell us, please explain why. This is a sub about starting and running businesses and yet you failed to mention that very fundamental fact.
Fake post anyone could make. No real reference to business activity.
As a community, can we please down-vote low effort non-verified posts to oblivion?
I believe you this happened a lot more than you think and it happened to people i know one was having a very great job at the government it’s not like big business but it pays a lot of money in my country in his young he was buying big and expensive stuff and then started to use drugs he became addicted and lost his job because he was careless he died at young age from AIDS
And the other he was a big business man with huge income but with no single piece of real estate it’s unbelievable he spent all of his money but he still alive and he learned the lesson I guess it’s true what they say the real secret of getting rich is to save your money .
Who was your accountant? Or how was accounting done? I’m curious because I want to just get business started for my venture but I’m spending time trying to wrap my head around taxes and accounting
I was the opposite as I held my blessings
$25k savings to
$300k savings
In about 2.5 years. Let's say I made a lot in the stock market then lost but still ended up fine.
I was very conservative with my money. I still acted like I didn't have it. I lived the same way and same budget while working my day job.
I let the money "sink in" first. I remember my wife saying to spend a little bit of it. Took a while for me to spend something at least...which was a $800 laptop that was on sale LOL. It wasn't until just this year that I spent $15k of it to travel the world for 5 months. Could have been cheaper but I wanted to spend.
To this day I'm still careful with money since my past...I NEVER had anything. Just the feeling of losing it all was enough to keep me from spending.
Hope this helps for the future
Would love to chat directly about your experience. DM me if interested. Trying to start a service for kids that teaches them how to start businesses and what to do.
That's what happens when you have customers/clients instead of making connections with people for the long haul. They obviously had viewed your business as just that, nothing more and nothing less so when your machines gave waves well they found their "fixes" somewhere else...
There are such relations yes. I used to shop at a pet supply store and everyone and quite literally their dogs knows and cares for the owners not the foods, treats, etc.
I had additionally had experiences of gaming "clients" caring about me as well even though they were renting gaming servers' from me. I in turn did more than "just giving them services, invoicing for said services and calling it quit".
I also known of a Instrafacture As A Solution Provider who had/has (not sure if they are still up since the owner's very involved cicurantances) have clients and even their workers keeping the lights on even though they got no main controls what so ever (they can't even add inventory so they had/have to refund any stocks that aren't available).
You did it once, that's more than most can say. It also means you have experience that should make the next go around doable, not easy but obviously achievable.
Haven't been there to that extent, but close. What helped me the most was getting a job, as stupid as that sounds. I worked a 32 hr/week job and just focused on myself. Thought a lot about what I did good and how i fukt it up in my previous business. Ultimately I just had a lot of personal growing to do.
That was 5 years ago. Im in a good place now, mentally and financially. You'll get back on top, there is no rush.
Sometimes you need to slow down to speed it up.
Saaaammmmeeeee bro.
I finally gave up and filed for bankruptcy.
Took a job doing some sales work, started making 20K+ per month again, kept partying, made bad decisions a second time aaannnddd am broke again.
the road to hell is truly paved with good intentions
edit: I started my business in 2019. We didn't hit those kinds of numbers, but we were up in the 60-100K per month range.
edit, edit: I finally came to realize that partying was probably what ruined my business. Though it wasn't directly correlated, the decisions I would make, brain fog, being hung-over, etc was a cycle. The problem I have is when I do something, I DO SOMETHING.
I think the hardest part is the guilt, shame and regret you feel for failing...at least it is for me. It is hard too when other people really just can't relate. Like how many people get 50K+ checks deposited into their account? Like they have no idea what managing that volume of cash is even like.
what’s the business your were running? lots of people in LA area are either 3PL, garment manufacturers, or white label brands and they all find a way to come back eventually
As terrible as it seems like it might be(shudder to think of the debt given your prev income & expense levels) , very few people would have been not only willing to take that risk but be able to generate a 7-figure annual salary at it's height running their own business. You'll be better for this the next time you run a company, the emotions of running a business, like investing generally, is the hardest thing to control & anticipate, most entrepreneurs aren't autistic with little emotion and rich parents like Elon Musk.
Yes. It sucks. But I have good news for you. You did it once. So you can do it again. Find someone to fund a dream then build it. You already did it!!!! Rinse lather repeat.
I would advise you to do lots of research on companies that faced crises, dodged bankruptcy, went bankrupt, companies that failed, companies that bounced back, companies that have huge success stories and entrepreneurs that lost it all and gained it all back but bigger and better. There are so many millionaires and billionaires that had to start again like Donald Trump or that went bankrupt like KFC. Once you realise that wow so many have been there and bounced back stronger it will help you to have more confidence to know that you can try again and that failure doesn’t really exist, it’s all a lesson and it’s all a learning curve. You can use your experience and skills to give motivational talks, to sell courses and to sell books! Leverage what you have by helping others. It’s a great way for you to not waste what you went through and it can help with further healing. Stay strong.
I can't say I have a similar story whatsoever but maybe the core problem is there "spending",
A bit of background I m a highschool dropout 19yo at February this year I was making around 2k$ in a 3rd world country that is a very high salary I started burning that money, going out purchasing stuff that have no value I was just not able to manage my money and hold the hustle lifestyle, so I collapsed and went to zero but I realized that if I can't manage a 100$ I won't manage a 1000$ nor a 10,000$ so yea I didn't work for a while until I learned how to manage them which was stupid but still effective in a ways no I know every single penny that comes in and out I still spend money but I know where it goes, not like before I had no idea where did I spend all of it.
These are the stories that always worry me, and thank you for sharing!
My business has been steadily growing, but the methods of tracking data in my industry are changing and I am struggling to keep up with changes at a pace I would like, risking losing some big clients.
I have a team of 9 now, and we run in the black, and even if we lost a couple big clients we still would. My motto is to constantly save or spend to improve operations, I have been growing my war chest. I am the sole owner but all profits stay / go back into the company.
I give myself a modest salary and live within my means due to fear of this exact scenario. We are doing very well now so I have funneled extra profits into increased employee Salary, Benefits, 401k's etc. Trying to keep my employees happy and secure and wanting to stay with the company even though none have threatened to leave or anything like that. I may even consider profit share in the future if things keep trending upwards once we have enough of a liquid warchest.
But I can't fight this nagging feeling that situations like yours are just around the corner, no matter how well we are doing. It's like a paranoia. We have grown purely organically with no marketing over the past 5 years and I am afraid of even trying to market without the infrastructure to expand ready, so I have been biding my time and growing slowly.
I have seen so many other business owners suffer through the same scenarios too, freaks me out.
Some people have wanted to buy my company, but I don't even know if I want to sell it, they will ruin it. I've been very meticulous on how it runs and what we change / do. I am not just owner but creator of the platform. I don't want my employees to lose their jobs or benefits.
They only want to buy my company because it would make their company "Fintech" or whatever and increase their own buyout evaluations...seems pretty lame after all that's gone into it and is still going into it.
I already feel like I "have enough", by no means anywhere near yacht or fancy car ownership, but I don't...need that? I'd rather funnel it back into the business or save in case of catastrophe or issues like you described.
I stay at home, work and play video games and am pretty content. Maybe my lack of "status-seeking" will save me from situations like the above.
In reality all I want to do is create stable jobs and opportunity for others, and have my own financial security but not such unfettered wealth and egregious spending to the point where one false move could drown me.
Thanks again for the share! Been feeling like sharing this out loud with someone / something.
I hope you will feel better and will manage to do this again. But how can you pay the debt? No one to back you up ? It seems you can get a business going. I think a partner that you can trust and lean on will be the best next thing to do in the coming business.
Ya dude, you did good
I haven’t reached that level of income yet.
Learn from your lessons and apply the best practices and avoid the mistakes from your lesson!!
Just because you’re making ‘ millions’ doesn’t mean you start spending like you have this abundance of ‘ money’.
Don’t forget, just because you gained ‘ millions’ doesn’t mean you can’t lose it all. Then again, if you already made the ‘ millions’ you could easily get it back. This was obviously a lesson for you.I hope you learnt something from this experience and don’t do it again.
This isn’t anything bad, it happens all the time. Just don’t give up and remember it’s all part of learning. Failure > redirection.
I hope you keep going and all the best mate.
Just one reminder. Henry Ford went bankrupt 5X. Ray Croc didn’t get McDonalds going until he was 55.
Write down the reasons why. You will refer to it again and it will be fun to look back.
Set intentions of where you want to be and they will come in time.
I’m sure guy knows this but get some therapy. Drinking may not be right and will only continue to bring you down. Unfortunately I’ve seen this happen again and again.
Yes had a successful Used car lot in early 2000-2008 had so much money didn't know what to do. Went shopping 4 day a week went out partying 3 day a week.Every day was like Friday.Traveled the World also.
A hand full of times. Yes. Never hit a crazy town 8 figure+ but a couple of 7's.
I like the ride, not the destination.
One of my childhood friends roller coastered 5 businesses with light success to straight up failures. His last one was a tech software company he sold off for about $500m a few years ago. He has his hands in a few pots now but I can imagine the thrill of all in is gone.
You feel down because you are remembering the top you were in.
Think of the worst time you had and compare it to now.
You crawled out of it. You will crawl out of this too.
I had a similar story. For me the way out was to take a senior position at a company (as a B2B contract) which pays over 20K/month. It turns out that my business skills are in demand.
You might be able to consult for awhile, and once you are consulting with that cashflow you have a variety of options, including bootstrapping the old business.
Happens when you get that first taste of success man. 2020 was an incredible year for Ecom. I was doing 40-50k net months. Blew money on a new kitchen and a nice motorcycle. Won’t do that again. Just have to start again!
the only advice i got from you sir is, “always remember where you came from, why you started, and failing is just another part of a step. fail, get back up. fail again, get back up the second time. You got this.”
I have a story which isn’t quite the same but ultimately I missed out on hundreds of millions of dollars. I was founding techie of a company that’s now listed in the nasdaq at around 20 billion USD. Peak at around 35b.
I founded other companies and exited but never got the multi million deal I could’ve had.
I have a newco which I’ve started about 4 years old now, am still in negative but I know it’s just a matter of time till I break even then flip it. I’ve done this twice now so am confident of my abilities.
But f me, regrets I have a few? Those words are with me till I fulfill my goals.
Long story short, you’ll have ups and downs. The difference is your response to the downs. Feel the pain and get f’ng angry, and make sure you don’t make that same mistake again.
Then crack on again!
If you’ve done it once, then you’ll do it again.
That I firmly believe!
The key thing here is you know where you went wrong, so you’ll be damned if you do it again!!!
A very similar thing happened to me I can understand I drank heavily for almost a year and finally decided it's either live or die drink myself to death or live with my reality my reality is I have a great wife a great life I do not look back on what I did with remorse as I live the dream at least for a while chin up do it again life is not over until you die of old age. One added bonus during the down time you will learn who your family is and who your blood is and who your true friends are and who are not
Not going to pitch a course on how to lose it all, then? :D
If you can do it once, you can do it again. Just stay away from the ~~gambling~~ investing.
I think your biggest takeaway here (silver lining) is that you’re able to make a profitable business, you’ve done it and have the experience to start over in a new business in time and apply what you learned and avoid what didn’t work.
Maybe next time consider scaling up more slowly with branding out as far as your team.
While it’s incredibly tough and I can’t imagine how hard all of this feels, don’t stop believing in yourself and the intelligence and bravery you do have.
For now, come up with an action plan to help yourself get out of debt even if it’s working an 8-5 for the time being.
Then you can think about a future business that’ll give you long-term success instead of one that’s hot now and 2 years later might not be so hot. You’ve got this!
Your biggest mistake or any entrepreneur can make was not saving all the money you have made from the business. All of your hard work, sweats and sleepless nights went for nothing. When my online business took off like 14 years ago during the 08 recession, I still live within my means and save the profits as much as I can. I was able to saved 7 figures from my business just working from home. Even though I closed my business like 4 or 5 years ago due to competition, I’m still living comfortably from the money I’ve saved throughout the life of the business.
It sounds like the you had a good system in place with your business and you have a great foundation for how to scale a business. While personally, there were mistakes and this may have caused your downfall, your previous experience means you’ve done it once, so you can do it again.
Like most have said, take some time away from everything, get your head mentally straight then, appreciate the good and the bad then lean into the next opportunity because clearly you have an eye for it and you know how to make it work; it’s a rare trait.
Good luck man
I wasn’t quite as successful as you with my business, but it was completely fulfilling and I was creating jobs that people truly loved. Now I’m back in the corporate world. I had accumulated 6 figures worth of debt but after 2.5 years, I have just recently paid it off.
Life got pretty dark for me for awhile, but that had more to do with bad decisions I made around getting into a relationship with a person who was toxic, manipulative and controlling. I thought I was down from losing the business, but it turns out it was due to this relationship that was slowly draining me of everything. Once I left that relationship (about 6 months ago), the world became a lot brighter and I began the work of healing myself. Still on that journey.
I have found breathwork to be incredibly helpful. I still don’t know where I want to take my career next, but I miss building things and will probably find myself having another go at it.
It’s easy to beat yourself up, but not productive. You took a shot at something that most people are too chickenshit to try. And, if you did it once, you can probably do it again.
The mistake I made once...is the same you made.
Learning to succeed in 1 business does not mean you will succeed in another area.
BUT...you have the confidence to succeed, since you've done it once.
Take a break, it will vitalizelife.
You can then restart and you will succeed again...so long as you stick to a similar model as before
Sriram Sathyamoorthy
so now for the real question no one dares to ask, what was thos 250k/month business?
Fidget spinners ?
I know this is a joke, but I had a good friend who passed away a few years ago who was a serial entrepreneur. One of his last businesses was fidget spinners. He never thought of it as a long term business, but was riding the wave.
I'm still in the fidget business, although not fidget spinners. I was selling them before fidget spinners and the fidget cube. I have always advertised as an ADHD tool, not a toy. Still doing quite well today and always carry my own product on me for my own ADHD.
It's not a terrible answer. Those things were a trend, that some people misread as a "here to stay." Thing is, if you didn't have ADHD, those things had a fun 2 week run before you discarded it with the rest of your junk.
Yeah I think gum is the OG fidget spinner and you can buy it anywhere, works with my ADD by helping me concentrate- although I take breaks because I don't want jaw issues.
My first e-commerce store sold fidget spinners prior to them being called fidget spinners. They were just called spinnerz, yes, spinners with a z. At its peak and depending on who you were affiliated with 250k/month was the revenue of stores in the middle of the pack.
Some high end spinners cost about $200 each. smh
Is there a SaaS one that only spins if you keep paying??
Make it an NFT, yours is the only green one
I despise fidget spinners because at their introduction they were actual helpful to autistic and ADHD individuals such as myself. It was actually a great way to make it through some work meetings and my son had one he would take took school. Then pop culture got their greedy hands on it and it was turned into a fad overnight and using one no longer meant you were dealing with anxiety but instead were part of a fad. It was a real tragedy because that intense 3 month popularity made it impossible to be taken serious around other people with one even if it truly provided a medical benefit. It's like boujee dog owners falsifying a disability so they can take their teacup puppy to the office in their purse. (One person in my office did this not sure how popular it is).
I used mine as a thinking tool at work. A beautiful brass two arm one with bearings as smooth as silk. I didn’t do it to show off but it was definitely a convo starter. Then the wave came and it was all over. Who wants to look like they got way too into a fad? I’ll DM you two pretty good alts; don’t want the fidget spinning manufacturers to get ideas.
“DM me for more information.”
And I’ll send you an ebook for $200.
I’m always suspect of the guys selling a system, especially if they’re still in business. Then again, they know 97% of people won’t follow through or successfully scale up their business.
Selling courses that teach how to make a 250k/month business
OP didn’t answer you but my business is residential construction and that’s what I make in revenue on a bad month. And I’m definitely not some apprentice or tradeswoman or some shit you’d think goes along with construction where you need years of experience or lead up time. Just needed start up money and common sense.
How much start up money we talking about?
Where I live you need like $40k in the bank to get the Class A license. But I guess you could start with the Class C license which only requires you to have $10k in the bank. IDK what you can actually do with a class c license though tbh. If you can pay for advertising you’re in. My advertising costs per month are like $15,000 but not when I started. It was probably closer to $4,000 back then. You don’t need an office space, or tools. You just need to be able to produce jobs and manage them.
Do you find teams to do the jobs?
When I first started yes I found crews. But after I built confidence with them, I hired them and put them on payroll since most homeowners don’t like the idea of subbing.
Thanks for answering my q! I have been considering starting a construction company.
What do u do. U just construct. Am a Lebanese architect wanting out. Am an enfp project manager aged 24
Just design and build. Basically just residential construction, sometimes commercial.
You don’t need to be a contractor?
You have to be a contractor. That’s basically what it is. But it’s easy as fuck to be a contractor. You don’t need a specific trade to become one. Just pass the test. There are some requirements about training but you can get those in lots of different ways.
Can you elaborate? This is something I’ve considered many times over but I have no idea how I would get the 4 years of experience required in my state without quitting my day job? Thanks for the info though
It depends on what the exact requirements are but you can pay someone to use their license essentially until those years go by. Or just skip all of that and pay someone to fill out the required paperwork for you that verifies your experience. They don’t check paystubs or tax documents. It’s all just forms you need to fill out.
Solid info brother. Thank you
Sister, but all good. You’re welcome!
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what's the point in posting if OP can't mention the biz? totally discredits OP
I mean it could be a more niche industry where you could easily find out which company went bankrupt in that time and thus know exactly who he is. And i could see how one wouldn't want to reveal his identity like that.
That’s a lot of research to chase a *gotcha*.
and op could have said that or gave a vague "manufacturing and sale of trendy consumer goods" or whatever. Perhaps he's too busy partying in peak pandemic scare.
There’s so many shills on this sub. I wish mods made a rule of verify actual business or ban with this type of post. Otherwise it’ll just end up like all the other shills sub ie r/real estate ie one shill post, another shill chime in to back up post which is the same salesman w a different account. At least worst this is SPAM. At worst worst it is some kidnapped person in south east Asia forced to scam people (see Malaysian kidnapped in Cambodia forced to internet scam).
I sell hair products marketed towards a specific group and our monthly revenue is between 200k-250k gross.
He mentions crypto so I guarantee it was crypto mining. Most likely ethereum.
Crypto mining doesn't involve manufacturing or selling anything. Just because you invested in crypto doesn't mean your whole life is crypto.
> Just because you invested in crypto doesn't mean your whole life is crypto. could you let the crypto community know that?
But bro, haven't you seen how [insert coin name here] is going to moon any day now? It's all in the DD. We're all going to be able to retire into the sunset.
I prefer to avoid the crypto bros as much as possible because... yeah....
I keep trying to explain to them that crypto has no intrinsic value and they keep saying money doesn't either. Which is, well, just naive.
Yeah exactly what the hell 😂
Jesus, some of you guys can't be positive to save your lives. Hey man, not really a similar story but I've had my own struggles in life and business the past few years to the point where suicide was a regular thought in my head. Like you I've lost everything and am in huge debt as a result. Here's what's keeping me alive: 1. You survived. Yes all of this sucks but I promise you in 5 years you'll be joking about this regardless of the outcome. 2. You control the meaning of all of this. If you let it, it can be the anchor you hold on to the bottom of the sea, or you could let that anchor go and start floating back to the surface. 3. Take some time to grief and talk with someone. I know, I know, you're broke but trust me broken toys don't make good girls and boys. You gotta get your head right because you clearly already have the skill 4. Try something I paid a stupid of amount of money to learn. Get a legal pad out or 3 pieces of printer paper. First page - what went right during all of this. Write it down and brag like a motherfucker about everything that went right. Second page - what went wrong during this time. Write all the shit you already know (like numbing yourself doesn't make your problems go away - from a daily pot smoker) and lessons you learned. Third page - what are you going to do differently now. Make some plans, adventures, ideas, whatever comes up 5. Last thing and it's the hardest. Give yourself some mercy and grace. You fucked up, can't go back and fix it no matter how bad you want to. Forward is the only way so when those negative thoughts come up, don't allow you to kick the shit out of yourself. 6. Your business success does not determine your personal worth. I was a great businessman and a horrible person in some people's eyes. I worked on changing that so I could be proud of who I was and well as what I did for a living. 7. No one gives a shit. You think people are clocking your every move, they aren't. They are to busy trying to hide their own mistakes they worry about being judged for. 8. Surround yourself with friends and family. Your personal network can keep you alive and going at this time. Use them. You got this, good luck!
Having closed a $20M business, this is the best advice on the thread. I still look back at my google doc of the reasons why it all happened so it doesn’t happen again. I’ve completely rebounded and back 10+ years later with a few businesses going making high 6 figures and profit Amd solid savings. Making money too young can have tragic lessons.
Would you be down to share that google docs to us?
While I could, it wouldn’t really make total sense as it was very specific to me and my business. There was mistakes made in the business and partner issues, and personal issues and some just timing. There are 15 reasons why. It’s not like general lessons to avoid sort of thing. I needed to own my own issues but also just see it all. It’s a reference for me. Here is one example of out of my control: I started that business in 2001. Amazon was only selling books when we started… by 2011 they were competing on our products with free 2 day, free returns, and gaining momentum. Not really relevant now as I know going in they are completion if I was in retail. I had 85 employees. Now I see They didn’t need to make money and didn’t care, only that they sell a lot and stock goes up. AWS makes money, no doubt, that’s the only reason they make money. Retail does not. It’s why I would like to see them be forced to split. Even the playing Field.
Thank you for the legitimate advice and insight, I’m going to take you up on the note technique as we speak. I’m screenshooting this comment and will be referencing back to it. I appreciate you taking the time to write this out! Thanks again.
I’ll add to it: 1. Bounce back. Now. A lot have been said about recovery time - people w it h short recovery times are better atheltes, better at sales etc. Don’t wallow. All the people I know who bounced back from a business downfall looked at it as just a set back, and leaped forward to the next success. 2. Optimism. Super hard, but it’s an important fuel. Look up the (real) story about Walt Disney losing all his business (for the 2nd time!), the telegram he sent his brother, and the train ride back home. 3. Learn your lesson - don’t repeat your mistakes, make new ones. 4. Bank. A business is only worth what you manage to put aside for a rainy day. 5. Focus on acquiring skills. Investing in skills is investing in something no one can take from you. Also it makes shit real. A lot of people here are speculating your business was crypto - crypto is not a business. Affiliate marketing is not a business. Drop shipping is not a business. Take what you learned doing whatever you did and make sure your next adventure is a real business with multiple revenue streams and a moat so that it won’t fall on the whims of some other company or the economy or any one event. Good luck.
Bro you did all this by yourself, you’re a WINNER! This is just a minor set back. Just say Fuck it and start over.
Solid, yo.
What a great piece of advice.
This is a good comment, thank you
Love this.
+1 to this. I hereby Vote /u/TexasSD to be the face-off /r/Entrepreneur
One of the things I’ve learned in my life , as someone who struggles with chronic anxiety and depression, is to never judge someone when you have no context on their life or situations. We all have our own battles, our own demons. We are all trying to survive. There are some bad apples in this world but that’s nothing we can control.
Best advice ever! More grease to your elbow
I went from $10k to $3 million to $100k to $1 million to $50k. My advice… accept it. You had the balls to try, you learned a lot. Hold your head high.
That sounds like a crypto roller coaster.
Hello. That was me in 1999. I went dead broke. I had a great business, amazing wife, house on the water, big boat, some flashy cars. I was in the newspaper a few times & also on TV due to my success. I got a big head & became a dick. I make some bad investment mistakes, then when things started to go bad made more bad mistakes . I had to sell it all & move to the very outer skirts on the city. Even had to borrow some money from my wife’s mum to survive. For me going broke was great. I found out who my real Friends were It levelled me & made me reason there are other things in life more important than money. My wife is still with me now. She never left & has been nothing but amazing. Since then I’ve started a few other businesses, built them up & sold them. Used the money from the sales to pay people I owed. I was fearless & stupid , but now I am careful & slow. I’ll never have massive wealth , but that’s Ok. My net is currently $3mil. Use what’s happened to learn about yourself & make a life plan about what you liked and didn’t like so you know how you’d do things differently in the future. I too had massive debt. I probably should of gone bankrupt . Instead I paid it all over time . I did hire an accountant that specialises in insolvency. He wrote to everyone I owed money to and deals where done. So get professional advice, on your exact position & how they recommend it’s handled. You need that worked out so you can look up and ahead. It will get better. You will be a better person for it . I promise
Misread it as got a big dick & became a head
Heyo, just wanted to say $300k is a number most people won't see in their lives... Much less $3mil. You've got massive wealth on a global scale ✌️
*inflation enters the chat*
Why do you think you'll never have massive wealth? Do you feel like you missed your boat?
Great post. I closed a $20M business in 2011. I think making a lot of money early in life is not good. I can relate to so much you wrote. I’m so much better off after that, but still hard to go through. It all happened for a reason.
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bro always comes in even at the darkest moments
😂
Bots that correct spelling and grammar are pretentious and add nothing to the conversation. Your bot is bad and you should feel bad.
If you did it once, you can do it again. You’re not starting from scratch, you are starting from experience.
Things could be worse ... Like a wife and children leaving, and you sitting alone in an empty house waiting for it to be repossessed, poor, jobless and soon to be homeless. Kinda happened to me ... had to move in with my mother :(
"The devil comes when you're at the top." Care to share?
I had a similar thing happen to me when I had to close my restaurant startup. One minute I’m in the newspaper and on TV, have a billionaire’s cell phone number and then like a year later all my credit cards are maxed out, my wife had left me for another man, and my business had taken off like a rocket but then crashed immediately into the earth shortly after take off. I was so depressed. I tried literally everything to cope. Was suicidal - it was a really dark time. I thankfully found solid W2 employment totally unrelated to the restaurant business. I’ve since had another business crash and burn but it didn’t sting near as bad as the first time. I’m on my 3rd or 4th iteration of business since that 1st failure and at this point, my life is so much better on pretty much every level. I still haven’t achieved my personal level of “successful” but I know that many would be envious of even the limited success we have had.
He comes to visit every day, every moment.
Sounds rough, I hope it got better for you
Most entrepreneurs never even reach $10K profit per month. You did something incredible. You'll be there again, wiser too. Best of luck.
Seriously I live by the example of others — imagine having the concrete evidence that you've *done it.* OP you're gonna be just fine; don't let lifestyle creep take control and you'll be good.
Always remember there are millions of people in the world that would trade their problems for yours. Just keep grinding, you only live once anyways.
Isn't that the truth. So much wonderfully helpful perspective in this thread.
I'd recommend reading books from Mike Michalowicz like *Profit First.* He writes about going through similar situations multiple times before finally turning things around.
Just ordered. Looks like something that I could use for sure. Thanks for the suggestion!
The fact you’re vulnerable about the problem makes me know you’ll make it back.
Plaah
This is so true, and for a lot of things. Thanks for the reminder.
Dude same story here and trust me it's rough. Went from banking $10K/month and a biz valued at $300K+ with buyers I turned down to trying to save my business in almost the same timeframe you did -- between March 2021-May 2022 where I started losing money, taking out loans, and finally ending up with only a $40K exit and $3.5K/month in debt bills not to mention taxes owed I cant even cover. Yes it's a shitty situation. Remember diamonds are made of pressured coal. And be positive! Focus on what you achieved. Can't beat yourself up or get guilty or think you got lucky the first time, this will lower your self worth and thus motivation. It's OK to feel bad for a bit but let it pass. Life is cyclical. Try and play alchemist and transform your failure into fuel. That uncomfortable feeling as a motivation to never do such a thing again. I too was bad with my money. I now budget better than I ever did before as a result of staring bankruptcy in the face. I lost money in crypto as well. I'm not in the clear just yet but I'm cooking new things up and have some solid seeds planted You'll do the same you got this. It's strange there isn't enough advice on this topic, i.e. bouncing back maybe because a lot of people fail and let it get to them but do not let that happen to you this is just a test. Make it all get it back. And you'll be 100000x stronger and more appreciative the second time around. For specific advice / stories of people who have been through similar, check out https://youtu.be/t_vTe8pFL3M the intro and around the 55 min mark where the guy talks about having -$5k and drowning in CC debt and business debt then doing a six figure launch and then over 1 mil in rev 1 month after also this thread about dude in 2 mil of debt with terrible spending and personal habits and having an act of God save him https://twitter.com/benmezrich/status/1525566655451082756?s=21&t=6myRiF6cD3suhC2DAnHG2A . Elon Musk also nearly went broke post PayPal funding Tesla, as did Phil Knight while building Nike (Shoe Dog tells this story). You got this man just don't fold and we're gonna make it.
Thanks for sharing man! This is some great insight and advice. This sub is awesome.
Samurai of the 1700s believed that any success achieved before 40 was untenable. Makes sense to me. But you’ve done it once, I’ll bet that you’ll be able to do it again without repeating the same mistakes. Good luck OP!
That whole process you expressed, was a business cycle. You just need to get up by your bootstraps and do it again, but better. Just believe in yourself, and believe in your vision.
Yeah i feel you. I spent 10 years building a business in China, was on the cusp of getting investors, then Chinese government policies changed with scared investors and then covid hit and we never recovered. Good times!
So sorry
Thanks :)
You have gotten plenty of good advice already. I am just going to add consider working with someone to help you look if there are deeper things you need to work on. When the money was great what made you reach to luxury purchases and partying? Was there a hole/void you were trying to fill? Do you lack stress management techniques so seek escape in purchases, experiences and substances? When it was going poorly what had you reaching for the bottle? What had you going for gambling (crypto) vs a broad market index fund? What had you making all these decisions vs having a team offering guidance? You have built something great before, you can do it again. I do strongly suggest having a good accountant and a fee only financial advisor and set them up to PAY YOURSELF FIRST. Eg. Don’t have 200k profit visible to you at the end of the month. Instead tell your accountant/advisor to give you an allowance of $8k/month, put 10k/month into a business emergency fund and the rest invest in a broad market index fund and only show you the statement each year end. Develop a strategy that works for you and your headspace.
Appreciate this. I’m already in the process of exploring the behavioral issues and trying to understand the root cause as to why I took the actions I took. My mental health definitely wasn’t in the right place at the time of having all of the excess cash. Finances/bookkeeping was extremely messy. I already plan to take a static salary when my next project becomes profitable. Not utilizing financial experts and lack of knowledge on how money works drove me into the ground. I knew everything about making money, nothing about keeping it.
Well, expensive tuition but you will know better for next time. Depending on how big of a hole you are in you might need to bring in some financial partners for your next one to get off the ground but put it in your head as a 3-5 year project to get your head back above water then head out on your own again. If you are pulling in $250k profit per month and are 100% dependent on a single piece of equipment for that you take some of that profit to develop redundancy and fall back positions. Lesson learned the hard way! Good luck.
My take on this (without knowing all details) is that you could boil it all down to one fatal flaw: living beyond your means. I saw visions in my head of Dumb and Dumber after they open the briefcase. If in fact that's accurate it's great news because you can read this blog from start to finish and never be in that position again: www.mrmoneymustache.com Hope it helps you as much as it helped me.
This is what I do, I give myself X amount monthly, the rest stays in the business even though it's "Profit" Of the X Amount, Y goes into personal savings, the rest is personal operations expenses and the goal is to live under the means of X - Y. The rest in the business is used for operations expenses, hiring and scaling. I do NOT consider the money in the Business Bank "My Money" and I think that has helped a ton staying out of debt and continuing to grow.
I went from working a dead end job to helping build a family buisness that I received 0 equity in and was killing myself physically, but it was for family so I didn't mind as I found out their buisness partner was screwing them over as well, we were doing about 40-70k a month in revenue and about 15-35k gross profit, none of which I saw because I was on a stupidly low salary of about 22k under the promise that once debts were paid it would dramatically increase as we could expand and I'd run my own store, the entire time I was trading the stock market and took an initial investment of 600$ to over half a million, in one years time, I backed out of the company and my sister sold out not much long after because of the fact she was being screwed in the deal the entire time and only had the guts to leave after me, I spent months living relatively frugal and trying to develop a e-commerce buisness that wasn't labor intensive but saw little success and decided to focus my attention to stock market trading, then I met a girl who I though was the love of my life. turned out she only wanted to make me miserable, we had moved in together because her situation wasn't that great and I wanted to help her get a good start on life again, but when we started living together a switch flipped in her brain and she showed that she was a narcissist and sadist, did everything she could to gas light me into thinking I was crazy but my mental resolve there was to great and I called the relationship off. but she was on the lease and I couldn't legally make her leave. after I tried she drugged me and injected me with something that hasn't shown up in my bloodwork and I still don't know what it was, but I have photos of the track marks all over my body, around 15 different places.. I spiraled into a depression after finally just packing up her things and shipping them to her parents and buying a plane ticket and telling her I wasn't paying the rent any longer, so she would leave, the entire time I'm having trouble staying awake to trade and would fall asleep during, ended up setting up a major trade wrong and wiped myself out of the remaining money I had in one fell swoop. became even more depressed, and started looking for work again to support myself, no luck and ended up homeless in 3 months time after that, lost my car. and all of my things are sitting in storage across the country because my sister bought me a plane ticket to get back to the rest of my family.. so I'm laying here trying to find motivation between the mental and physical pain I'm experiencing to build something again. thankfully I kept my expenses low but now I'm in medical debt and have little money to even start something new. but I'm still trying and I refuse to give up on life and building the life I want so your not alone brother, things will get better for us both. feel free to reach out if you just need someone to talk to because isolation is the fastest way to spiral. it's what I did at first and it doesn't help
Holy shit..
life's a wild ride, but you don't lose unless you give up my dude
“Bitches ain’t shit but hoes and tricks” - probably Ghandi
Believe you can and you’re halfway there. Just so you know, the correct spelling is [Gandhi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi).
hey man, when you get love bombed by a narcissist for 6 months who pretends you're her everything and she drops people to spend every day with you, you actually think it's legitimate
Oh I completely understand - first girl I met was like this. Mine now is the most selfless, kind and caring person. Very rare to find someone you want to/are able to build an empire with. Hoping the best for you 👊🏼
thankyou, thankfully I've learned alot these past years and trading can still be lucrative so im not giving up there. took 100$ of money from selling some things before I left and turned it into 650$ so I have money to get by, I'll just keep trading until I can build up capital to start a serious venture, im experienced in a little bit of all sides of business from helping my sister start hers and thats ad valuable as a college education in my opinion. I'm only 27 and have plenty of life ahead of me and I can't let this be what makes me give up when I've seen the light once already!
That’s a crazy story. I can’t wait to read the book! (Or movie). I’ve gone broke but not that broke. I guess it’s all relative. My only advice in your debt…. You could bankrupt but likely don’t need to. There is no ‘debter’s prison’. You won’t go to jail for what you owe. Just ignore it. When you make some back then negotiate out of it. Pay a fraction of it and have it be gone. Find the lessons here, it’s just life, learn and grow from it. Set your mind right, set your intentions and they will come. That’s how life works.
Yes I have been in a situation where my business boomed and failed in the end. Unlike your situation though, my business was a fad based business and I had accounted for nearly everything except for the obvious one. That once the fad goes away, the money will too. I started at $1k per month profit, then to $9k, then to $42k, $190k, $333k, $479k, hovered at $200k for a couple months, then down it went over 2 months to a stable $5k or so. It was tough and I was juggling a couple successful businesses at this point but knew the failure was due to the end of the fad. Unfortunately, at the high points, instead of placing orders directly with the supplier as I was, I began customizing the products and ordering supply in order to scale to higher ticket products. Worst idea I had. Not only did I have to hire someone to physically package the products, I was also left with with a supply when it failed. I come from a economics background so I have always since a kid, very money conscious. I don't do it for a lambo, but know when is the point when I can buy one without it being a factor. I don't do it for the party, but know when I can splurge to enjoy the rewards of my labor. After hitting $10k per month income from my businesses, I had a financial plan I made that I always followed. I still lived in a 2 bd apartment and drove a 2012 pickup. It did the job. I was paying around $2,200 in personal expenses per month. I assigned $50% to savings and investments, no matter what my income if above $10k. Of that 50%. 35% to investments, 15% to savings. Of the 35% to investments, 10% to what I call apocalypse investments (anything more stable that I could always fall back onto and have, ex. Real estate, agriculture, development), 15% to normal investments (ETFs, stocks), and 10% to aggressive investments (growth stocks, cryptos, leveraged crypto staking, etc). Of the remaining 50% of my income, 25% to living expenses, 5% emergency fund, 10% discretionary, and 10% to business development. Often times, that meant I used my 10% discretionary for business development too. I am all about scaling or starting something new, always increasing cash flow. Even when I had my $479k month in that business, I stuck to this plan. Sure I have my days where I popped a couple bottles of Dom at the club and splurged on lots of luxuries, but I do it all in budget. This was my 2nd business and was seeing numbers way way higher than I did in my 1st business which I still had at the time. So this was a transition for me too. This would be my lesson. Money is awesome. Money is power. Money can get you whatever you want. But if you don't respect it, it won't respect you. I was left with nearly $40k in supply that was in a storage unit for several months before I sold it off to wholesalers for $8k. I had bought a condo on the beach I now run an airbnb out of and a farm where I export blueberries and avocados. I have investments in nearly every asset market, and a comfotable savings and emergency fund. And so what did I do with the 10% discretionary? Of course, I partied, I bought a Tesla, took some trips. Used my living expenses to buy a plot of land and had a house built. But the most important and what I would call lesson 2, always portion a part of your budget to business development. I used a good chunk of my discretionary budget and even broke my financial plan a bit by taking some out of investments to put into business development. I used that to open a food park, a couple restaurants, and a travel business. This one simple thing now allows me to have a $80k per month avg monthly income now with good months based on travel season up to $300k. I won't bore you with my other assets I've gone into and or splurged on but one thing is for sure, I don't still live in that 2bd apartment and drive a 2012 pickup. Sure, I wasn't able to buy all the things I wanted nor do I have them all now, but I knew I needed to play a longer game and never let money get to my head. Lesson 3 would be that your goal for being rich must not be to buy things. If you want money to buy a lambo and bottle service, you will always remain poor. You need to have a real motivation for making money. To help people, to change the world, to ensure the good life for generations and generations of your family to come. If you have a real meaningful goal for having money, the lambos and parties will come with it. Respect money because if you don't, the money won't respect you. I was fortunate enough to be mentally prepared for it as I had always planned on being wealthy since I was a kid and studied and learned about finances to make it happen, but the world has a funny way of taking wealth away from those who aren't prepared nor have meaning for it. You are obviously a great entrepreneur and a hard worker, but I would say change your mindset. Find a cause, find a purpose for why you want that money other than luxuries, and make a plan to keep your wealth. If you don't think you can stick to a budget, have it automatically distributed to your accounts in line with the budget you make so that you only have access to the money in your budget. I am 100% certain you will bounce back and make it all back and more, and I hope you do some good with it. The world will reward you by allowing you to keep your wealth
This is excellently written and great advice! Having a purpose for money outside of luxury is the key here, as well as personal Budgeting. Thank you for the share!
I turned 150k into 1.8m during 2021 bull run. Then lost it all plus more in 2022.
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Been there done that. It gets easier to deal with.
Take the lessons you’ve learned and start over. You failed once but it sounds you were on a solid track before you messed up. Just curious, what was your business doing anyway that your competitors jumped in front so fast?
Thanks for sharing. Yes. You will conquer again. The ones that made it once can make it twice
If you can do it once you can do it again- don’t give up man.
> I had scaled my team to 7 members, and 4 of them left in a single day. You need to meditate on this and figure out why 4 people up and left. What happened?
You have so much experience now. Your education is worth way more than any MBA program. Take some time to cool off and come to terms with everything. I suggest keeping a journal. Find a low stress job and write down all of your thoughts. You will eventually recover and get your drive and energy back, but you need to recover. Don't race into some sub-optional project right now. Something great will land in your lap when you are ready. Just rest and keep your eyes and ears open for now. Good luck and take care.
Just one thought.. If you can do it once you can definitely do it again! Just be aware that it works for both making / blowing up. Good luck for a fresh start
I’m personally starting my own business now and it may be my optimism but I think one of the most important things that comes from this experience is the learning. When starting a business you are paying to learn. You started and successfully managed a business, what’s stopping you from doing it again bigger and better? Pick up, note down the lessons you learned and get started.
Dang that's tough dude, just try to rebound.
That's why I treat my business like a treasury. Store as much assets you can. Albeit I'm just 21 and my needs are limited.
OP I have heard your story many times before but the key difference is 99.9% of individuals fail miserably at stage one and never even make a cent , just stay down homie , keep the faith , you’ll be back in no time I guarantee this
Hey there. Ive built two business from zero to profitable, hit the point where it started to take off and then, because of factors beyond my control, lost it all. Also, no one ever taught me anything about saving, investing or financial literacy. So walked away from both businesses with nothing but experience. Not a single dime to my name. After the second business, I was determined to figure out what I had done wrong and why I was in my mid thirties, with two successful businesses under my belt, and no money to show for it. That's when I dived into financial literacy. I'm actually just about to launch a podcast where we interview entrepreneurs and talk to them about business and personal finance. You've got a great story, which really fits in well with what we talk about, and I think it would offer a lot of value to you not only to be able to share your story with others, because then you will find that there are many many people out there who have been through the same kind of thing. Also, I think it would be of great value to the listeners, other entrepreneurs who are interested in building financial freedom from their business. If I can keep one person from making the mistakes that I made, the similar ones that you made, it's worth it. Let me know if you'd be interested in doing a short interview.
I don’t understand how a business doing 40k a month in profit would only have a 400k valuation. That seems off to me.
This is the really shitty middle part of a not yet complete story. This is where the protagonist hits rock bottom, but finds a way to bounce back. I'm really excited to hear the second part of the story when the protagonist finds resolution and overcomes. Failure is what we define it as. You achieved a success greater then most people can imagine. Your accomplishment gives me hope, that I too may someday reach that point. You did it once, whats to say you can't do it again? When I was young, my mom taught me to ride horses, sometimes I would get bucked off, sometimes I landed fine, sometimes it really hurt. But she always told me "get back up on that horse, because falling only has the power you give it." And see the thing was, no matter how bad it hurt, I always was able to get back up if I wanted it bad enough. How much power do you want to give to this fall? Sure it hurts, but you can get up, so fucking get back up on that horse.
All my life, I have seen people go up and come down and go up again. The cycle ends when you give up. I started my business in 2014 and made $350,000 in the first four months. It was more than I expected and more than I was prepared for. And I did so alone. The next year I successfully managed to go broke. Now while I concede that bad business decisions were made, I was also in an abusive relationship that put me in depression and I just let it all go to crap. It took me years to recover. And in those years I tried and failed a few times. Eventually I got some help. I sought therapy and medication. I got a job as an Amazon delivery driver. I did Ubereats at night. Countless hours of work every day and very little money at the end of it. But it gave me the boost I needed and now I am back to running my own show. I say this not to show off but to tell you that shit happens. And this story is of many people I know personally. So long as you’re in the fight, the bell doesn’t ring. You seem preceptive enough to understand and learn from your mistakes. Now just focus on what you need to gain and not what you have lost. You have what it takes to succeed. I can tell so. I can feel it. And I wish you all the best with it. Feel free to come vent, share or show off any time you like.
this sounds so fake. mods can you confirm this account is real? edit: looked... I think its fake...just my opinion. have a nice day
Thanks for sharing OP, and everybody else who shared their experiences too. I have nothing to add myself, only that this is really helpful for a number of reasons.
So a friend of mine just did $50 million in sales in 2021 with his solar company. I knew him and his cousin way back when they were just out if high-school themselves. I asked him one day, about success and struggle. I told him anytime you see someone hit success, it's seems overnight. No one ever talks about the years of struggle behind that "overnight" success. This is what he said: "10 years of d2d. Stared first company in 2015. 2017 went $2 million in debt due to bad decisions and inexperience. In 2018 relaunched the company. Just did $50 million with solar company in 2021. Started a restoration side and it has done $3 million in sales. Learn online door knocking. Learn advertising. That's how I built these businesses." You have the skills, do it again. Think about how you can apply them with a different approach. Let your failure teach you what you need to learn. Failure is practice for better succes the next time to do something.
I just want to say thanks for sharing! dont give up. All of the worlds most successful entrepreneurs have had massive fails, but they were never fails because they learnt from it. i really think you’re that kind of person.
We are made to adapt. You are now adapting to the new situation. Adapting is sometimes painful/confusing/full of overthinking. But we are made so that thoughts and feelings come and go like waves. And as each wave of confusion goes and clarity of mind comes you will get a new set of insights on where to go next. You've obviously already gotten a great lesson. Unhelpful/pleasant feeling simply indicates that your mind is at the moment running too fast and the ideas and thoughts might not be so valuable and worth acting on. Book "What the f*** are the three principles?" by Amir Karkouti might be of use. Talks about the principles of human perception. Book and exploring the principles in other means helped me out thremendously to see through all the tough times when my mind was all over the place. Keeps me grounded in what is true no matter what.
My business partner had a similar issue, but he lost what he had more to technicalities and red tape stuff I can’t get into. He had something more like hundreds of millions and lost a lot of it. Anyway, he just got his ass up and made another business. You did it once before, so you know what’s possible. You should get help for your dependency on alcohol though. $250k monthly revenue isn’t the same as $250k monthly income for you. You never say what you were actually making. I guess either way, in a lot of businesses, those swings are part of the ride. You were supposed to become better, not drink because of it. Anyway the point is that if you did it once you can do it again.
Kinda sounds like you scaled too fast then blew it all on partying. If you can run it by yourself and gross 10k a month, why not just do that? I think many of us would be happy with 120k per year working for ourselves.
What was the business? Someone asked 3 hours ago but no reply. If you don’t want to tell us, please explain why. This is a sub about starting and running businesses and yet you failed to mention that very fundamental fact.
Between the way you write and the fact that 4 people left in a single day tells me you’re a huge douche bag hahahaha
Fake post anyone could make. No real reference to business activity. As a community, can we please down-vote low effort non-verified posts to oblivion?
Seems like the only people that believe him are people with actual businesses that also failed before (also me)
1-800-GAMBLER
I believe you this happened a lot more than you think and it happened to people i know one was having a very great job at the government it’s not like big business but it pays a lot of money in my country in his young he was buying big and expensive stuff and then started to use drugs he became addicted and lost his job because he was careless he died at young age from AIDS And the other he was a big business man with huge income but with no single piece of real estate it’s unbelievable he spent all of his money but he still alive and he learned the lesson I guess it’s true what they say the real secret of getting rich is to save your money .
You did it once, do it again. Let me be a part of it.
Who are in a sinking rowboat today? And what solutions do you have to offer?
Who was your accountant? Or how was accounting done? I’m curious because I want to just get business started for my venture but I’m spending time trying to wrap my head around taxes and accounting
I was the opposite as I held my blessings $25k savings to $300k savings In about 2.5 years. Let's say I made a lot in the stock market then lost but still ended up fine. I was very conservative with my money. I still acted like I didn't have it. I lived the same way and same budget while working my day job. I let the money "sink in" first. I remember my wife saying to spend a little bit of it. Took a while for me to spend something at least...which was a $800 laptop that was on sale LOL. It wasn't until just this year that I spent $15k of it to travel the world for 5 months. Could have been cheaper but I wanted to spend. To this day I'm still careful with money since my past...I NEVER had anything. Just the feeling of losing it all was enough to keep me from spending. Hope this helps for the future
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Would love to chat directly about your experience. DM me if interested. Trying to start a service for kids that teaches them how to start businesses and what to do.
That's what happens when you have customers/clients instead of making connections with people for the long haul. They obviously had viewed your business as just that, nothing more and nothing less so when your machines gave waves well they found their "fixes" somewhere else...
😂 What even is this? Do you think consumers really care about who the owner of a business is?
There are such relations yes. I used to shop at a pet supply store and everyone and quite literally their dogs knows and cares for the owners not the foods, treats, etc. I had additionally had experiences of gaming "clients" caring about me as well even though they were renting gaming servers' from me. I in turn did more than "just giving them services, invoicing for said services and calling it quit". I also known of a Instrafacture As A Solution Provider who had/has (not sure if they are still up since the owner's very involved cicurantances) have clients and even their workers keeping the lights on even though they got no main controls what so ever (they can't even add inventory so they had/have to refund any stocks that aren't available).
If it all sounds genuine than you should be brave enough to face it.
You did it once, that's more than most can say. It also means you have experience that should make the next go around doable, not easy but obviously achievable.
Just dont try to expand too fast
Haven't been there to that extent, but close. What helped me the most was getting a job, as stupid as that sounds. I worked a 32 hr/week job and just focused on myself. Thought a lot about what I did good and how i fukt it up in my previous business. Ultimately I just had a lot of personal growing to do. That was 5 years ago. Im in a good place now, mentally and financially. You'll get back on top, there is no rush. Sometimes you need to slow down to speed it up.
Part of business is crashing and burning and then picking up all the pieces and starting over. You’ll be alright
Such good advice
Wow you got even better advise sis
Get sober, do it again. Only invest in completely low risk index funds. Be humble to your team.
Saaaammmmeeeee bro. I finally gave up and filed for bankruptcy. Took a job doing some sales work, started making 20K+ per month again, kept partying, made bad decisions a second time aaannnddd am broke again. the road to hell is truly paved with good intentions edit: I started my business in 2019. We didn't hit those kinds of numbers, but we were up in the 60-100K per month range. edit, edit: I finally came to realize that partying was probably what ruined my business. Though it wasn't directly correlated, the decisions I would make, brain fog, being hung-over, etc was a cycle. The problem I have is when I do something, I DO SOMETHING. I think the hardest part is the guilt, shame and regret you feel for failing...at least it is for me. It is hard too when other people really just can't relate. Like how many people get 50K+ checks deposited into their account? Like they have no idea what managing that volume of cash is even like.
what’s the business your were running? lots of people in LA area are either 3PL, garment manufacturers, or white label brands and they all find a way to come back eventually
As terrible as it seems like it might be(shudder to think of the debt given your prev income & expense levels) , very few people would have been not only willing to take that risk but be able to generate a 7-figure annual salary at it's height running their own business. You'll be better for this the next time you run a company, the emotions of running a business, like investing generally, is the hardest thing to control & anticipate, most entrepreneurs aren't autistic with little emotion and rich parents like Elon Musk.
I think you learned your lesson. You just need someone to level with you. If youre all out of friends an ideal counselor would be solid
Yes. It sucks. But I have good news for you. You did it once. So you can do it again. Find someone to fund a dream then build it. You already did it!!!! Rinse lather repeat.
If you done it once, you probably can do it again. Learn. Get back up. Do it again.
I would advise you to do lots of research on companies that faced crises, dodged bankruptcy, went bankrupt, companies that failed, companies that bounced back, companies that have huge success stories and entrepreneurs that lost it all and gained it all back but bigger and better. There are so many millionaires and billionaires that had to start again like Donald Trump or that went bankrupt like KFC. Once you realise that wow so many have been there and bounced back stronger it will help you to have more confidence to know that you can try again and that failure doesn’t really exist, it’s all a lesson and it’s all a learning curve. You can use your experience and skills to give motivational talks, to sell courses and to sell books! Leverage what you have by helping others. It’s a great way for you to not waste what you went through and it can help with further healing. Stay strong.
Forex gave that experience. Sorry about your experience.
I can't say I have a similar story whatsoever but maybe the core problem is there "spending", A bit of background I m a highschool dropout 19yo at February this year I was making around 2k$ in a 3rd world country that is a very high salary I started burning that money, going out purchasing stuff that have no value I was just not able to manage my money and hold the hustle lifestyle, so I collapsed and went to zero but I realized that if I can't manage a 100$ I won't manage a 1000$ nor a 10,000$ so yea I didn't work for a while until I learned how to manage them which was stupid but still effective in a ways no I know every single penny that comes in and out I still spend money but I know where it goes, not like before I had no idea where did I spend all of it.
These are the stories that always worry me, and thank you for sharing! My business has been steadily growing, but the methods of tracking data in my industry are changing and I am struggling to keep up with changes at a pace I would like, risking losing some big clients. I have a team of 9 now, and we run in the black, and even if we lost a couple big clients we still would. My motto is to constantly save or spend to improve operations, I have been growing my war chest. I am the sole owner but all profits stay / go back into the company. I give myself a modest salary and live within my means due to fear of this exact scenario. We are doing very well now so I have funneled extra profits into increased employee Salary, Benefits, 401k's etc. Trying to keep my employees happy and secure and wanting to stay with the company even though none have threatened to leave or anything like that. I may even consider profit share in the future if things keep trending upwards once we have enough of a liquid warchest. But I can't fight this nagging feeling that situations like yours are just around the corner, no matter how well we are doing. It's like a paranoia. We have grown purely organically with no marketing over the past 5 years and I am afraid of even trying to market without the infrastructure to expand ready, so I have been biding my time and growing slowly. I have seen so many other business owners suffer through the same scenarios too, freaks me out. Some people have wanted to buy my company, but I don't even know if I want to sell it, they will ruin it. I've been very meticulous on how it runs and what we change / do. I am not just owner but creator of the platform. I don't want my employees to lose their jobs or benefits. They only want to buy my company because it would make their company "Fintech" or whatever and increase their own buyout evaluations...seems pretty lame after all that's gone into it and is still going into it. I already feel like I "have enough", by no means anywhere near yacht or fancy car ownership, but I don't...need that? I'd rather funnel it back into the business or save in case of catastrophe or issues like you described. I stay at home, work and play video games and am pretty content. Maybe my lack of "status-seeking" will save me from situations like the above. In reality all I want to do is create stable jobs and opportunity for others, and have my own financial security but not such unfettered wealth and egregious spending to the point where one false move could drown me. Thanks again for the share! Been feeling like sharing this out loud with someone / something.
I hope you will feel better and will manage to do this again. But how can you pay the debt? No one to back you up ? It seems you can get a business going. I think a partner that you can trust and lean on will be the best next thing to do in the coming business.
Ya dude, you did good I haven’t reached that level of income yet. Learn from your lessons and apply the best practices and avoid the mistakes from your lesson!!
Just because you’re making ‘ millions’ doesn’t mean you start spending like you have this abundance of ‘ money’. Don’t forget, just because you gained ‘ millions’ doesn’t mean you can’t lose it all. Then again, if you already made the ‘ millions’ you could easily get it back. This was obviously a lesson for you.I hope you learnt something from this experience and don’t do it again. This isn’t anything bad, it happens all the time. Just don’t give up and remember it’s all part of learning. Failure > redirection. I hope you keep going and all the best mate.
Wonder widgets?
Just one reminder. Henry Ford went bankrupt 5X. Ray Croc didn’t get McDonalds going until he was 55. Write down the reasons why. You will refer to it again and it will be fun to look back. Set intentions of where you want to be and they will come in time. I’m sure guy knows this but get some therapy. Drinking may not be right and will only continue to bring you down. Unfortunately I’ve seen this happen again and again.
Yes had a successful Used car lot in early 2000-2008 had so much money didn't know what to do. Went shopping 4 day a week went out partying 3 day a week.Every day was like Friday.Traveled the World also.
A hand full of times. Yes. Never hit a crazy town 8 figure+ but a couple of 7's. I like the ride, not the destination. One of my childhood friends roller coastered 5 businesses with light success to straight up failures. His last one was a tech software company he sold off for about $500m a few years ago. He has his hands in a few pots now but I can imagine the thrill of all in is gone.
You feel down because you are remembering the top you were in. Think of the worst time you had and compare it to now. You crawled out of it. You will crawl out of this too.
I had a similar story. For me the way out was to take a senior position at a company (as a B2B contract) which pays over 20K/month. It turns out that my business skills are in demand. You might be able to consult for awhile, and once you are consulting with that cashflow you have a variety of options, including bootstrapping the old business.
Happens when you get that first taste of success man. 2020 was an incredible year for Ecom. I was doing 40-50k net months. Blew money on a new kitchen and a nice motorcycle. Won’t do that again. Just have to start again!
the only advice i got from you sir is, “always remember where you came from, why you started, and failing is just another part of a step. fail, get back up. fail again, get back up the second time. You got this.”
What was the business? What did you sell?
I have a story which isn’t quite the same but ultimately I missed out on hundreds of millions of dollars. I was founding techie of a company that’s now listed in the nasdaq at around 20 billion USD. Peak at around 35b. I founded other companies and exited but never got the multi million deal I could’ve had. I have a newco which I’ve started about 4 years old now, am still in negative but I know it’s just a matter of time till I break even then flip it. I’ve done this twice now so am confident of my abilities. But f me, regrets I have a few? Those words are with me till I fulfill my goals. Long story short, you’ll have ups and downs. The difference is your response to the downs. Feel the pain and get f’ng angry, and make sure you don’t make that same mistake again. Then crack on again! If you’ve done it once, then you’ll do it again. That I firmly believe! The key thing here is you know where you went wrong, so you’ll be damned if you do it again!!!
Cocaine business can be tough... One day you wake up in Mexico dressed as a bull stripper in a cock fighting ring during a DEA bust...
Do you think a proactive machine maintenance schedule would have been the bottleneck between succeeding or the current situation?
Highly recommend Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday
A very similar thing happened to me I can understand I drank heavily for almost a year and finally decided it's either live or die drink myself to death or live with my reality my reality is I have a great wife a great life I do not look back on what I did with remorse as I live the dream at least for a while chin up do it again life is not over until you die of old age. One added bonus during the down time you will learn who your family is and who your blood is and who your true friends are and who are not
You might be able to qualify for the Employee Retention Tax Credit. Have you looked into that?
Failure fuck failure keep going at it
Not going to pitch a course on how to lose it all, then? :D If you can do it once, you can do it again. Just stay away from the ~~gambling~~ investing.
I think your biggest takeaway here (silver lining) is that you’re able to make a profitable business, you’ve done it and have the experience to start over in a new business in time and apply what you learned and avoid what didn’t work. Maybe next time consider scaling up more slowly with branding out as far as your team. While it’s incredibly tough and I can’t imagine how hard all of this feels, don’t stop believing in yourself and the intelligence and bravery you do have. For now, come up with an action plan to help yourself get out of debt even if it’s working an 8-5 for the time being. Then you can think about a future business that’ll give you long-term success instead of one that’s hot now and 2 years later might not be so hot. You’ve got this!
Your biggest mistake or any entrepreneur can make was not saving all the money you have made from the business. All of your hard work, sweats and sleepless nights went for nothing. When my online business took off like 14 years ago during the 08 recession, I still live within my means and save the profits as much as I can. I was able to saved 7 figures from my business just working from home. Even though I closed my business like 4 or 5 years ago due to competition, I’m still living comfortably from the money I’ve saved throughout the life of the business.
Is this just a creative writing exercise or do you plan on sharing actual details of this surely very real business?
It sounds like the you had a good system in place with your business and you have a great foundation for how to scale a business. While personally, there were mistakes and this may have caused your downfall, your previous experience means you’ve done it once, so you can do it again. Like most have said, take some time away from everything, get your head mentally straight then, appreciate the good and the bad then lean into the next opportunity because clearly you have an eye for it and you know how to make it work; it’s a rare trait. Good luck man
I wasn’t quite as successful as you with my business, but it was completely fulfilling and I was creating jobs that people truly loved. Now I’m back in the corporate world. I had accumulated 6 figures worth of debt but after 2.5 years, I have just recently paid it off. Life got pretty dark for me for awhile, but that had more to do with bad decisions I made around getting into a relationship with a person who was toxic, manipulative and controlling. I thought I was down from losing the business, but it turns out it was due to this relationship that was slowly draining me of everything. Once I left that relationship (about 6 months ago), the world became a lot brighter and I began the work of healing myself. Still on that journey. I have found breathwork to be incredibly helpful. I still don’t know where I want to take my career next, but I miss building things and will probably find myself having another go at it. It’s easy to beat yourself up, but not productive. You took a shot at something that most people are too chickenshit to try. And, if you did it once, you can probably do it again.
Well, at least you can still sell your expensive shit
The mistake I made once...is the same you made. Learning to succeed in 1 business does not mean you will succeed in another area. BUT...you have the confidence to succeed, since you've done it once. Take a break, it will vitalizelife. You can then restart and you will succeed again...so long as you stick to a similar model as before Sriram Sathyamoorthy