Hi everyone,
I joined this forum back in 2015 after reading TML cover to cover a dozen times. The concept of CENTS really resonated with me and I vowed to turn my humble blog into a real business that satisfied these commandments.
My blog served a new, very specific and fast growing industry, so I started by selling advertising listings on the site. This generated income of around £5000 (GBP) p/month.
Those working in this industry suggested I organize the first industry event so in 2017 I did just that, and attracted 80 people from around the world to join us. This grew to 99 people in 2018 and 129 people in 2019 before covid hit.
Then I launched an online store to serve the industry. The store now makes sales of approx £30,000 p/month.
Next, I launched website design and marketing services aimed at the same industry. This has grown to around £25,000 p/month.
Now, we're focusing on online events and online training programs and are hopeful these will be successful.
In total, we turnover about £700,000 p/year and my company employs 9 people.
As I eluded in the thread title, I think I screwed up. Here's why:
My business is devouring my time. I work 60-80 hour weeks just to keep on top of everything. I have a young team and they're brilliant, but they're needy of my time and means its hard for the business to operate without me. I hired a General Manager to run things day to day, but because I've been the face of the business for so long, its not easy to extract myself from the business.
There's a lot of anxiety around letting go. My industry was battered harder than most by Covid lockdowns and our clients are now skittish and nervous. The customers they serve have never really returned in the same numbers, so financially speaking things are challenging for us at the moment. Stepping away seems a tough call right now.
I'm at the point where the business I love and should be proud of is becoming a burden to me, and is affecting my happiness.
I'm not sure what to do. I could:
Can anyone relate to this? What would you do?
I joined this forum back in 2015 after reading TML cover to cover a dozen times. The concept of CENTS really resonated with me and I vowed to turn my humble blog into a real business that satisfied these commandments.
My blog served a new, very specific and fast growing industry, so I started by selling advertising listings on the site. This generated income of around £5000 (GBP) p/month.
Those working in this industry suggested I organize the first industry event so in 2017 I did just that, and attracted 80 people from around the world to join us. This grew to 99 people in 2018 and 129 people in 2019 before covid hit.
Then I launched an online store to serve the industry. The store now makes sales of approx £30,000 p/month.
Next, I launched website design and marketing services aimed at the same industry. This has grown to around £25,000 p/month.
Now, we're focusing on online events and online training programs and are hopeful these will be successful.
In total, we turnover about £700,000 p/year and my company employs 9 people.
As I eluded in the thread title, I think I screwed up. Here's why:
- Control - I am in full control of every aspect my business
- Entry - It is super hard for others to copy us because we've built such an immense reputation over time
- Need - Our industry is full of new startups who need our services, and our online store sells products that are critical to the running of their businesses
- Scale - We have diversified slightly and now serve a market with a combined 30,000 businesses. So there is plenty of room to scale.
My business is devouring my time. I work 60-80 hour weeks just to keep on top of everything. I have a young team and they're brilliant, but they're needy of my time and means its hard for the business to operate without me. I hired a General Manager to run things day to day, but because I've been the face of the business for so long, its not easy to extract myself from the business.
There's a lot of anxiety around letting go. My industry was battered harder than most by Covid lockdowns and our clients are now skittish and nervous. The customers they serve have never really returned in the same numbers, so financially speaking things are challenging for us at the moment. Stepping away seems a tough call right now.
I'm at the point where the business I love and should be proud of is becoming a burden to me, and is affecting my happiness.
I'm not sure what to do. I could:
- Force my own removal from the day to day running of the business, with a committed timescale, and go launch something new.
- Accept my fate, give myself a mental slap and dive wholeheartedly back into the business.
Can anyone relate to this? What would you do?
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