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Hi All!
I'm going to admit to being a lurker in the forum. Today I decided to post and be more active. I'm going through the dreaded period called the Desert of Desertion.
My business partner and I have been working 4 years in this project. We framed it pretty much following the CENTS rules and are happy we did it. We have a good moat. Control is relatively good as we work with several wholesalers across the US and hopefully soon in the EU. of all the CENTS rules I'd say Scale is the hardest as it is a luxury product (and very hard to make), so we sell less volume, with higher margin.
Now comes my emotional part. These four years our business hasn't paid us a dime. I think it has paid for 2 dinners and one lunch in 4 years.
I can understand the long term game and rationalize this (trust me I've been working for free for 4 years) but I have to be honest in that it is starting to get to me emotionally.
Also financially.
I freelance on my old full time job to pay the bills. but now money is just not enough, and I find myself late in paying rent and things like that.
We ordered a massive amount of inventory this year to cover several months of sales as we sold out the last holiday season (yay). Now we're running to make enough sales right now just to pay for this large inventory altogether. In my mind after we make the leap into this larger stock we can alleviate our cashflow situation and probably even cover our rents or something. a F*cking coffee paid for my business would be nice.
Aside from the rant, I'd like to ask fellow entrepreneurs here what they have done during this period to stay motivated and to avoid falling in desperation or full out exhaustion.
I built this business not knowing what the hell I was getting into and has provided me with incredible experiences. I used to love getting up at 6am to work. That's not the current case.
We're so deep into this desert I don't think we can even quit, but every morning feels a lot more difficult than the previous one to me.
Thank you to anyone out there who took the time to read this.
I'm going to admit to being a lurker in the forum. Today I decided to post and be more active. I'm going through the dreaded period called the Desert of Desertion.
My business partner and I have been working 4 years in this project. We framed it pretty much following the CENTS rules and are happy we did it. We have a good moat. Control is relatively good as we work with several wholesalers across the US and hopefully soon in the EU. of all the CENTS rules I'd say Scale is the hardest as it is a luxury product (and very hard to make), so we sell less volume, with higher margin.
Now comes my emotional part. These four years our business hasn't paid us a dime. I think it has paid for 2 dinners and one lunch in 4 years.
I can understand the long term game and rationalize this (trust me I've been working for free for 4 years) but I have to be honest in that it is starting to get to me emotionally.
Also financially.
I freelance on my old full time job to pay the bills. but now money is just not enough, and I find myself late in paying rent and things like that.
We ordered a massive amount of inventory this year to cover several months of sales as we sold out the last holiday season (yay). Now we're running to make enough sales right now just to pay for this large inventory altogether. In my mind after we make the leap into this larger stock we can alleviate our cashflow situation and probably even cover our rents or something. a F*cking coffee paid for my business would be nice.
Aside from the rant, I'd like to ask fellow entrepreneurs here what they have done during this period to stay motivated and to avoid falling in desperation or full out exhaustion.
I built this business not knowing what the hell I was getting into and has provided me with incredible experiences. I used to love getting up at 6am to work. That's not the current case.
We're so deep into this desert I don't think we can even quit, but every morning feels a lot more difficult than the previous one to me.
Thank you to anyone out there who took the time to read this.
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