Open letter to small business owners: You were meant for MORE..

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Do you ever wake up with the feeling of dreading your business? Asking yourself, “how did I get myself there?”

When the weight of the responsibilities of being a small business owner outweighs the satisfaction we get from it. There is a moment of reckoning.

You recall the early days when everything used to be exciting and a new adventure to unfold. Yeah, people kept saying it was going to be difficult, but you knew that owning your own business would be the key to having more freedom.

The first two years felt like an uphill battle, many times wondering if you are going to be able to pay the mortgage even.

There it went, the last paycheck you owed for the month! You made it! But, did you really?

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I too, have been in the trenches of building not one but four companies. I remember vividly the exhilaration of locking down our first B2B contract back when I was building my first company. Or the first hundred products sold of this very innovative hardware technology we built on my second company.. And of course, the first 15 small businesses we onboarded with my third one. Each one of these moments was huge for us! For me, as the CEO, it meant even more. It was a battle won. One of multiple battles to come.

Then I also remember the first time I knew we had run out of funding, investments were taking longer than expected and we could no longer keep investing from our own money. We ran out of cash.

But wait! What about all of those companies that were waiting to sign contracts with us! and the list of hundreds of people who were still waiting for our products on the waitlist? Yes, those were real too!

The reality of that moment takes a while to sink in.. You built a great product or a handful of them, people tell you they LOVE your products and you even have a great social media engagement.

And yet, you look at the bank account and the money you made - however much - it was barely covering the rent and employee wages. How did all those great customer reviews and having a product that is far better than your competitors not make a difference?

In that moment, all those - far too many to count - late nights, skipped vacations and EVEN not paying yourself or not paying yourself enough as a sacrifice for your business. Where does all that go?

While I still don’t have the answer for that one. I can tell you one thing. THERE IS MORE FOR YOU! As there was for me!

Things changed radically the moment I decided that I wasn’t going to do ALL OF THAT.. That by trying to be the hero of the story, I was making myself a victim of my own situation.

I’ve done this enough times to understand that your company is your baby, it is your creation and you, like me, are deeply attached to it. While that is completely valid, it doesn’t mean that the hard way is the only way. Those are lies, planted by the ones that don’t want you to succeed - not really.

“YEAH, let them think they can do it all BY THEMSELVES. Let them struggle until they get tired and disappointed enough that they will quit!” That’s what they are really thinking. If you read C.S. Lewis in his infamous “The Screwtape Letters”, that’s exactly what I’d imagine those voices would sound like to a business owner.

There is a better way.

There were two moments that clearly changed the path in my entrepreneurial life. The first one was probably the hardest one and most precious I would learn. The second one opened up a world of possibilities.

Lesson 1. Pay yourself

The first time I started as an entrepreneur, I was coming out from the corporate world with a handsome salary and benefits. I had some money saved and I took a loan to cushion the beginning of the journey. My co-founder and I did not take any salaries, we thought we’d made up for it once the company was stable enough. We closed big contracts, which meant we needed to hire more people to fulfill those contracts. Then the ONE contract came about with a 7-figure check and a 3-year commitment. That was it! We made it! .. but wait! In order to fulfill this contract we needed to build infrastructure in the client’s region, that was the request. So, we went even deeper, got another loan to pay for it. And the most unexpected thing happened. The client cancelled the contract alleging financial trouble and that they might stop payments for other vendor contracts already in motion. That was that!

My co-founder and I ended up with a huge debt to pay and no personal cushion. You might argue that we could have negotiated better terms and lower the risk, etc. YES, AND, that would still not have changed our situation, not much really.

As soon as we got ourselves back on the horse, we started paying ourselves, maybe not market rate, but we each felt relieved that we saw something come back to us and that the financial burden was lessened. Since then, I don’t start building anything if I’m not paying myself. I learned my lesson.

Lesson 2. Work with other people that can do what you are not great at

This lesson took a long time to sink in, but when it did, it was cemented!

I pride myself on being good at many things. I pursued a masters in finance because I love numbers, I’m a trained project manager and can do ops well, and I can do some programming too. But I realized that although I can do all those things, I am exceptionally good at marketing!

The one-woman band never really suited me, projects get started and never finished due to frustrations in the way, or simply crash because I didn’t configure well to start with. I decided to let my ego aside and partner with people who are - not good or ok- but AMAZING at what they do. I realized that working with them doesn’t make me smaller, it actually magnifies anything we are building! And we are both happy to do it because the other party is taking care of what is probably frustrating and even annoying, and is doing it blissfully!

That my friends is when God smiles!

If you are great at your craft, but are not great with numbers, get someone who is!

If you are not good at doing marketing, find someone who loves it! 🙋‍♀️

If you have been a victim of either of these traps, BREAK FREE! There is so much more waiting for you on the other side! I can’t promise it will be easy, after all, you’ve been doing things this way for so long, remember? However, I can guarantee it is worth it!

If this resonated with you, hit reply, what’s your story? I’d love to hear from you.

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