Growing a business and the trials and tribulations that go with it

[hustlebear]

Hey guys, I wanted to share my story and wanted to get some perspective.

I built and currently run a low 7 fig service based company in Australia for the past 2 years. It was great in the beginning and I was excited everyday to get to work, hustle hard, and fell in love with the idea of building a massive empire with 100s of employees and to go national and sell it for millions of dollars. Oh naive me.

I hustled, recruited great people and things were exciting. People were energetic and there were no issues we couldn't solve. I focused heavy on culture, customer service and the team built systems and processes for service delivery. Customers were happy, employees were happy, and I was happy. Then the music stopped.

Cracks started to show themselves.. People started to complain about other people in the business. I had to fire people (people I became friends with - that sucked), deal with complaints from customers, and complacency among staff. I lost the pulse and my passion slowly dwindled each month and became pretty apathetic to be honest. Although revenue continued to increase, I felt my life in the business became a slog. I've outsourced most duties and I'm not too much in the the day to day grind but I feel guilt that my hearts not in the business anymore. I hate micromanaging people and feel like I've lost the plot.

With another COVID lockdown here in Sydney Australia, all my negative emotions just amplified.

I have doubts. I ask myself if I'm cut out for this? Is this a phase I just need to work through? Are these growing pains that all business owners go through? Is this part of every business owners learning curve? Do I need to man the fk up, get the sand out of my vag, and develop myself more?

Managing people and their emotions are a sign of a great leader and do I need to have this skill to be successful? I feel drained when i'm doing this and I also feel guilty that I can't hold space for these people that need me to be their servant leader.

My question to you business owners out there:
Is the gold at the end of the rainbow to keep scaling for another few years or is my skillset just good at starting things and I should back off... Did you hire someone to take over?
I'm here seeking perspective from other business owners who have perhaps been in my shoes and have either worked through it or found another alternative or just any wisdom they would like to share for this novice.

Thanks and appreciate your time and input!!

 

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[einsteinii]

Hey guys, I wanted to share my story and wanted to get some perspective.

I built and currently run a low 7 fig service based company in Australia for the past 2 years. It was great in the beginning and I was excited everyday to get to work, hustle hard, and fell in love with the idea of building a massive empire with 100s of employees and to go national and sell it for millions of dollars. Oh naive me.

I hustled, recruited great people and things were exciting. People were energetic and there were no issues we couldn't solve. I focused heavy on culture, customer service and the team built systems and processes for service delivery. Customers were happy, employees were happy, and I was happy. Then the music stopped.

Cracks started to show themselves.. People started to complain about other people in the business. I had to fire people (people I became friends with - that sucked), deal with complaints from customers, and complacency among staff. I lost the pulse and my passion slowly dwindled each month and became pretty apathetic to be honest. Although revenue continued to increase, I felt my life in the business became a slog. I've outsourced most duties and I'm not too much in the the day to day grind but I feel guilt that my hearts not in the business anymore. I hate micromanaging people and feel like I've lost the plot.

With another COVID lockdown here in Sydney Australia, all my negative emotions just amplified.

I have doubts. I ask myself if I'm cut out for this? Is this a phase I just need to work through? Are these growing pains that all business owners go through? Is this part of every business owners learning curve? Do I need to man the fk up, get the sand out of my vag, and develop myself more?

Managing people and their emotions are a sign of a great leader and do I need to have this skill to be successful? I feel drained when i'm doing this and I also feel guilty that I can't hold space for these people that need me to be their servant leader.

My question to you business owners out there:
Is the gold at the end of the rainbow to keep scaling for another few years or is my skillset just good at starting things and I should back off... Did you hire someone to take over?
I'm here seeking perspective from other business owners who have perhaps been in my shoes and have either worked through it or found another alternative or just any wisdom they would like to share for this novice.

Thanks and appreciate your time and input!!

After every night sun will rise again and light will spread.
Current situation will not remains forever, this is unexpected and for short period of time... yeah it is much slower to get normal.
Everyone is suffering from this situation but also created a lot of opportunities you just have to find out what you have that you can offered people in such tough situation.
That's how you can over come from whatever problems you have encounter.

 

[peddletothemetal]

A thing I noticed as an employee is businesses tend to grow to the size of their leader.

At a certain point the tribulations of the business reach his limit, which sets a natural ceiling on its size. He hits the limit of his energy and can push or care no further, and grumbling in workers and customers causes a steady state attrition. That's as big as the business will get.

The smarter, stronger, more resourceful the leader, the higher this limit will be. Strength can mean things like the ability to let go of control (a classic error is tightening to regain sense of control, causing more harm than good) and intelligence can include things like hiring the right people.

Based on what I've seen, if I were in a similar situation, I'd first let the business scale down a bit, such as by firing some bottom of the ladder clients, and laying off some problem employees. I'd then take it easier and wait for my energy to return. Once it did I'd do a review of which of my personal weaknesses or business model weaknesses caused the ceiling, then devise a plan to change things up so as to set a new ceiling.

 

[Andy Black]

Hey guys, I wanted to share my story and wanted to get some perspective.

I built and currently run a low 7 fig service based company in Australia for the past 2 years. It was great in the beginning and I was excited everyday to get to work, hustle hard, and fell in love with the idea of building a massive empire with 100s of employees and to go national and sell it for millions of dollars. Oh naive me.

I hustled, recruited great people and things were exciting. People were energetic and there were no issues we couldn't solve. I focused heavy on culture, customer service and the team built systems and processes for service delivery. Customers were happy, employees were happy, and I was happy. Then the music stopped.

Cracks started to show themselves.. People started to complain about other people in the business. I had to fire people (people I became friends with - that sucked), deal with complaints from customers, and complacency among staff. I lost the pulse and my passion slowly dwindled each month and became pretty apathetic to be honest. Although revenue continued to increase, I felt my life in the business became a slog. I've outsourced most duties and I'm not too much in the the day to day grind but I feel guilt that my hearts not in the business anymore. I hate micromanaging people and feel like I've lost the plot.

With another COVID lockdown here in Sydney Australia, all my negative emotions just amplified.

I have doubts. I ask myself if I'm cut out for this? Is this a phase I just need to work through? Are these growing pains that all business owners go through? Is this part of every business owners learning curve? Do I need to man the fk up, get the sand out of my vag, and develop myself more?

Managing people and their emotions are a sign of a great leader and do I need to have this skill to be successful? I feel drained when i'm doing this and I also feel guilty that I can't hold space for these people that need me to be their servant leader.

My question to you business owners out there:
Is the gold at the end of the rainbow to keep scaling for another few years or is my skillset just good at starting things and I should back off... Did you hire someone to take over?
I'm here seeking perspective from other business owners who have perhaps been in my shoes and have either worked through it or found another alternative or just any wisdom they would like to share for this novice.

Thanks and appreciate your time and input!!

@Kak @Antifragile

 

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[heavy_industry]

In my own personal experience, "grinding" your way to success is a bad approach that leads to burnout and mediocre results.

Being enthusiastic about your project and truly believing in its potential is the fuel that will turn everything into gold. The best decisions I've ever made were when I was happy. As soon as you start getting the stress of daily execution creep in, long-term strategy and high-level management flies out the window.

Take some time off and reflect on the vision you have for this business.

Make an exhaustive list of everything in your business that drains your energy and either automate or outsource those tasks. Then focus exclusively on the tasks that grow the business and bring you joy.

 

[hustlebear]

In my own personal experience, "grinding" your way to success is a bad approach that leads to burnout and mediocre results.

Being enthusiastic about your project and truly believing in its potential is the fuel that will turn everything into gold. The best decisions I've ever made were when I was happy. As soon as you start getting the stress of daily execution creep in, long-term strategy and high-level management flies out the window.

Take some time off and reflect on the vision you have for this business.

Make an exhaustive list of everything in your business that drains your energy and either automate or outsource those tasks. Then focus exclusively on the tasks that grow the business and bring you joy.

thank you for your insights!

 

[Antifragile]

Hey guys, I wanted to share my story and wanted to get some perspective.

I built and currently run a low 7 fig service based company in Australia for the past 2 years. It was great in the beginning and I was excited everyday to get to work, hustle hard, and fell in love with the idea of building a massive empire with 100s of employees and to go national and sell it for millions of dollars. Oh naive me.

I hustled, recruited great people and things were exciting. People were energetic and there were no issues we couldn't solve. I focused heavy on culture, customer service and the team built systems and processes for service delivery. Customers were happy, employees were happy, and I was happy. Then the music stopped.

Cracks started to show themselves.. People started to complain about other people in the business. I had to fire people (people I became friends with - that sucked), deal with complaints from customers, and complacency among staff. I lost the pulse and my passion slowly dwindled each month and became pretty apathetic to be honest. Although revenue continued to increase, I felt my life in the business became a slog. I've outsourced most duties and I'm not too much in the the day to day grind but I feel guilt that my hearts not in the business anymore. I hate micromanaging people and feel like I've lost the plot.

With another COVID lockdown here in Sydney Australia, all my negative emotions just amplified.

I have doubts. I ask myself if I'm cut out for this? Is this a phase I just need to work through? Are these growing pains that all business owners go through? Is this part of every business owners learning curve? Do I need to man the fk up, get the sand out of my vag, and develop myself more?

Managing people and their emotions are a sign of a great leader and do I need to have this skill to be successful? I feel drained when i'm doing this and I also feel guilty that I can't hold space for these people that need me to be their servant leader.

My question to you business owners out there:
Is the gold at the end of the rainbow to keep scaling for another few years or is my skillset just good at starting things and I should back off... Did you hire someone to take over?
I'm here seeking perspective from other business owners who have perhaps been in my shoes and have either worked through it or found another alternative or just any wisdom they would like to share for this novice.

Thanks and appreciate your time and input!!

@Kak @Antifragile

Thanks for the tag, Andy.

We have a few dozen employees only, so it's not like I have a business with 10,000 people. Maybe my experience can be of help to @hustlebear

First, where are you with your business now? This is an old post!

In general: people are not a problem, they are the solution. Unless you hate yourself, you should love people. This forum seems to have many who hate employees. @Kak and I are the few who are so polar opposite to that... we don't understand how that logic goes.

Our VP had some slack in his schedule, he designed lunch and learn courses for all staff. I attended a few and they were shaping our company! The culture is what people do when you are not there. Seeing that, filled my heard with warmth.

Was it always like that? No. Will it continue like that forever? Probably not. You'll have your ups and your downs.

But here is my take, businesses scale through the following typical methods:

• Technology (that make a product at almost zero cost that can be resold)
• People (my company functions when I am not there, development of real estate continues)
• Money (you can do bigger things with more money, and money doesn't need to be yours)

Let me ask it another way, say you needed more money, would you be OK learning how to raise money? Or would you retreat into a shell like so many do claiming "but I don't like it, it's uncomfortable, it's not my personality... it's [excuses x100]... ". If you needed to learn something about technology that could 10x your output, would you say "oh gee... I don't know... it's not my thing, not my personality... it's hard etc."

Same with people. It's a skill, like any other. Businesses exist because of people. Want greatness in business, learn how to use every available resource.

Do what you must, not what you find comfortable.

And the word "passion" drives me F*cking crazy. I am passionate about building a business. Don't fall in love with your own product! Become excellent at helping people get what they want - be passionate about that.

 

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[Tiago]

@NeoDialectic @fastlane_dad

 

[fastlane_dad]

Hey guys, I wanted to share my story and wanted to get some perspective.

I built and currently run a low 7 fig service based company in Australia for the past 2 years. It was great in the beginning and I was excited everyday to get to work, hustle hard, and fell in love with the idea of building a massive empire with 100s of employees and to go national and sell it for millions of dollars. Oh naive me.

I hustled, recruited great people and things were exciting. People were energetic and there were no issues we couldn't solve. I focused heavy on culture, customer service and the team built systems and processes for service delivery. Customers were happy, employees were happy, and I was happy. Then the music stopped.

Cracks started to show themselves.. People started to complain about other people in the business. I had to fire people (people I became friends with - that sucked), deal with complaints from customers, and complacency among staff. I lost the pulse and my passion slowly dwindled each month and became pretty apathetic to be honest. Although revenue continued to increase, I felt my life in the business became a slog. I've outsourced most duties and I'm not too much in the the day to day grind but I feel guilt that my hearts not in the business anymore. I hate micromanaging people and feel like I've lost the plot.

With another COVID lockdown here in Sydney Australia, all my negative emotions just amplified.

I have doubts. I ask myself if I'm cut out for this? Is this a phase I just need to work through? Are these growing pains that all business owners go through? Is this part of every business owners learning curve? Do I need to man the fk up, get the sand out of my vag, and develop myself more?

Managing people and their emotions are a sign of a great leader and do I need to have this skill to be successful? I feel drained when i'm doing this and I also feel guilty that I can't hold space for these people that need me to be their servant leader.

My question to you business owners out there:
Is the gold at the end of the rainbow to keep scaling for another few years or is my skillset just good at starting things and I should back off... Did you hire someone to take over?
I'm here seeking perspective from other business owners who have perhaps been in my shoes and have either worked through it or found another alternative or just any wisdom they would like to share for this novice.

Thanks and appreciate your time and input!!

There is no quick and easy solution to the issues you are facing, and there are always dozens of ways you can treat the business moving forward.

There is no 'gold' at the end of the rainbow, unless you set that goal as such. On a long enough time scale the thing that matters is the every day. Whether or not you are looking forward to doing the things that you are doing on a daily basis. I'm sure many of us can weather any storms, but you need to be true to yourself what else you are willing to put in and what you are looking to get out.

You also need to recognize your strengths and weaknesses. I do believe that I am capable of improving nearly every area where I'm weak at - but I do recognize my limitations as an introvert and what I would prefer not to do daily (let's say sales calls in the field, or giving nonstop presentations as part of the workday, etc). Dealing with people is very energy draining for me, not to say that I can't do it or put on a good face while I'm doing it.

@NeoDialectic and I exited our last business based on a couple factors you are describing as well. First, we were working mostly in the business instead of on it. Next, next level growth would require us to take on more people and expand our office and effort we put in to set that up. That isn't something we wanted to undertake. We had no dreams ever of a large staff count, managing or micromanaging tons of employees, or being responsible for giving work to tens or hundreds of people. Third - after close to a decade of working on it, we were done emotionally and wanted to undertake new projects. Last the numbers made sense for us to sell and move on to other things.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Obviously your answers are in the hard questions you must ask yourself.

What's wrong with outsourcing most duties like you have done now? What else do you want from your business, especially if it's running without you? What's preventing you from entering or starting something else while it's running in the background? What's your 'gold' at the end of the rainbow? What is currently not making you happy especially that you have gotten most of the tasks of your plate? What else are you contemplating of doing?

The issues you describe are not unlike any of those of growing, scaling and expanding any business that seeks to gain success. Are there other ways you would prefer to do this, or do this altogether?

@hustlebear what's your current update 1.5 years since this thread began?

 

[hustlebear]

Thanks for the tag, Andy.

We have a few dozen employees only, so it's not like I have a business with 10,000 people. Maybe my experience can be of help to @hustlebear

First, where are you with your business now? This is an old post!

In general: people are not a problem, they are the solution. Unless you hate yourself, you should love people. This forum seems to have many who hate employees. @Kak and I are the few who are so polar opposite to that... we don't understand how that logic goes.

Our VP had some slack in his schedule, he designed lunch and learn courses for all staff. I attended a few and they were shaping our company! The culture is what people do when you are not there. Seeing that, filled my heard with warmth.

Was it always like that? No. Will it continue like that forever? Probably not. You'll have your ups and your downs.

But here is my take, businesses scale through the following typical methods:

• Technology (that make a product at almost zero cost that can be resold)
• People (my company functions when I am not there, development of real estate continues)
• Money (you can do bigger things with more money, and money doesn't need to be yours)

Let me ask it another way, say you needed more money, would you be OK learning how to raise money? Or would you retreat into a shell like so many do claiming "but I don't like it, it's uncomfortable, it's not my personality... it's [excuses x100]... ". If you needed to learn something about technology that could 10x your output, would you say "oh gee... I don't know... it's not my thing, not my personality... it's hard etc."

Same with people. It's a skill, like any other. Businesses exist because of people. Want greatness in business, learn how to use every available resource.

Do what you must, not what you find comfortable.

And the word "passion" drives me F*cking crazy. I am passionate about building a business. Don't fall in love with your own product! Become excellent at helping people get what they want - be passionate about that.

Update:

"People are not a problem, they are the solution"

This is extremely wise and goes against what most people say. I feel like most people (incl myself) say they hate people because it preserves their ego of not confronting their own inadequecies and not knowing how to deal with people as we are all complex (as you say, it is literally a skill which I feel requires a tremendous amount of self awareness). I wrote this 1.5 years ago quite depressed and lost and was super close to selling the company. I had to develop my own self worth and make the hard decisions that I knew were right in my gut ( do what you must, not what you find comfortable rings quite true). I ended up firing my business partner from management as we couldn't see eye to eye on a few things however I blamed myself for not speaking up and grew resentful of myself and him (for being a soft owner). I restructured the business to be a lifestyle business to move from employees to contractors. I was extremely scared about what my employees would think but realised it was necessary for me to be happy and to keep going (again, just being in my head and not backing myself).

We have a smaller core team now and revenue is about the same but I'm trimming a lot of the fat like getting rid of the office, lunches etc. I now have the mental capacity to work on another businesse and have this current business running in the background as just cashflow which has given me some more purpose knowing that this first business was not the end all be all. I put all this expectation to be successful and wealthy within 2-3 years and when shit hit the fan, my own mind/self awareness was not strong enough to manage myself and thus manage others around me. All in all i feel much better as I feel more confidence in myself as a person and as a leader in the business.

My biggest takeaway from these few years. The level of progress , scale, or sucess of the business really depends on the founders level of awareness of their strengths, weaknesses, and ego. What really helped me was journalling regularly to see my patterns of self sabotage and making decisions reactively based on emotion rather than logic. Am I doing something for the good of the company or am I doing something to make me feel better? I realised I was making decisions or lack thereof just to not feel bad - avoiding conflict, disappointing people, people pleasing etc. As many of you probably know, it's very easy to see trends when you have data. I think most people just dont like to see data of themselves, especially when it's negative and something they don't want to confront.

Thanks for your thoughts Antifragile.

 

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[hustlebear]

There is no quick and easy solution to the issues you are facing, and there are always dozens of ways you can treat the business moving forward.

There is no 'gold' at the end of the rainbow, unless you set that goal as such. On a long enough time scale the thing that matters is the every day. Whether or not you are looking forward to doing the things that you are doing on a daily basis. I'm sure many of us can weather any storms, but you need to be true to yourself what else you are willing to put in and what you are looking to get out.

You also need to recognize your strengths and weaknesses. I do believe that I am capable of improving nearly every area where I'm weak at - but I do recognize my limitations as an introvert and what I would prefer not to do daily (let's say sales calls in the field, or giving nonstop presentations as part of the workday, etc). Dealing with people is very energy draining for me, not to say that I can't do it or put on a good face while I'm doing it.

@NeoDialectic and I exited our last business based on a couple factors you are describing as well. First, we were working mostly in the business instead of on it. Next, next level growth would require us to take on more people and expand our office and effort we put in to set that up. That isn't something we wanted to undertake. We had no dreams ever of a large staff count, managing or micromanaging tons of employees, or being responsible for giving work to tens or hundreds of people. Third - after close to a decade of working on it, we were done emotionally and wanted to undertake new projects. Last the numbers made sense for us to sell and move on to other things.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Obviously your answers are in the hard questions you must ask yourself.

What's wrong with outsourcing most duties like you have done now? What else do you want from your business, especially if it's running without you? What's preventing you from entering or starting something else while it's running in the background? What's your 'gold' at the end of the rainbow? What is currently not making you happy especially that you have gotten most of the tasks of your plate? What else are you contemplating of doing?

The issues you describe are not unlike any of those of growing, scaling and expanding any business that seeks to gain success. Are there other ways you would prefer to do this, or do this altogether?

@hustlebear what's your current update 1.5 years since this thread began?

Thanks for your reply Fastlane Dad. I think i focused too much on the outcome and couldn't come to appreciate the everyday journy. Just looking at my language 1.5 years ago - "grind" and "slog" doesn't really inspire too much confidence in my business lol. I think the point about just doing what needs to be done regardless of 'feeling' like doing something is the signs of a sucessful business owner, in which i am seeing in others.

Being true to yourself - i think this is the thing that got my depressed and hating my situation. I wasn't true to myself and this manifested into shitty a$$ emotions and decision making which ultimately led me to the stagnation of the business. It emotionally drained me everyday not being able to be true to myself and what I wanted in a business. I thought that to be a successful entrepreneur you need to be this charismatic dude managing lots of employees and having a big office. Making my parents proud having staff and being a 'boss'.

Thanks for your insight and reply. It really helps me seeing others already knowing themselves, their own vision for their life and striving for my own vision.