The Art of Letting Go

You can’t make this up…“I'll never forget one investor meeting where I left feeling pretty defeated. The investor was trying to give me advice on how I needed to "stop being so soft-spoken and demure" (which was his not-so-veiled way of stereotyping me as an Asian-American woman) and be more like founders with public profiles. He continued on that I should create a personal brand and show things like me cooking at home or playing with my kids and all the other things in my seemingly perfect life so that I could build an Instagram following that would help my business skyrocket.

I sat there, stunned. Here I was prepared to talk through the strategies, the projections, the new partnerships, the business…and all he wanted to discuss was how I needed to build an aspirational personal brand and how I was falling short of this "opportunity." Now, I could go on and on about how this is an unfair expectation that sits squarely on the shoulders of FEMALE founders - to live these carefree, beautiful lives that make people covet this lifestyle. Even though I know the ridiculousness of this, I couldn't help leaving this meeting feeling inadequate - like I was failing my company by not sharing more of myself. Don't get me wrong. Founders are very much a part of the business and the brand. But, I am not Material and Material is not me. We purposefully built a brand where our products feel right for the life YOU lead and celebrate the differences in one's kitchen. 

As for the investor? We didn't let him have even a crumb on our cap tables. Because no matter how wide he would open up his wallet, we did not want someone on our team that valued the superficial over the fundamentals…and our business continues to exponentially grow year-over-year as a result.” — Eunice Byun, Co-founder of Material

Entrepreneurship is a numbers game. You’re constantly thinking: How many shots do I have to take to get a yes? The no’s we encounter along the way make us so resilient that we don’t always strengthen the muscle to say it ourselves. I’ve learned the ability to take a step back and say - You know, this isn’t right for us - is an equally important skill. It’s a unique mix of discipline and your gut feeling that took me years to develop. This week, we’re chatting with Eunice and Maiden Home Founder Nidhi Kapur about cultivating conviction in what is right for your business and letting go of opportunities that aren’t, even those you worked really hard for. 

My experience has taught me that knowing when to let go is just as important as knowing when to hold on. It’s a constant awareness of what’s working in your company and staying true to your values. We’ve similarly opted not to work with partners who weren’t aligned with our vision, discontinued designs and even divisions of our brand that weren’t performing. The truth of the matter is sometimes you just don’t have a winner. These decisions may be crystal clear on paper, but our attachment to ideas make them tricky to part with. 

Nidhi shares the experience that helped her make the distinction…“In the early days of Maiden Home, I was pregnant and designing a nursery for the first time. I saw a hole in the market for a stylish, comfortable, well-priced nursery glider and became convinced Maiden Home needed to offer one. I worked tirelessly before, during, and after my son’s birth on the project - specifically remember one “up to my ears” moment nursing my son at home, on a conference call with our North Carolina partners, peering at my laptop at technical drawings of a glider mechanism - the juggle was real but I was obsessed! After months of work, I still wasn’t happy with the product direction and realized doing it the way I wanted would require a much more intensive engineering effort than we could take on as a small team. I tabled the project after months of intense work, but the process helped clarify for me our design mission at Maiden Home. Every Maiden Home product has to be a standout - not just an “also ran” - and holding true to that sometimes means abandoning projects after a ton of time invested...I encourage my team to see these moments not as disappointments, but as affirmations of our mission and the higher standard we hold ourselves to.” 

We all find ourselves at these crossroads. Our team recently paused a significant project we dedicated years of creative energy and resources to. It was a tough decision because other brands have been successful. Rather than sit around and contemplate why we weren’t, we accepted that we gave it our best shot, cut our losses, and moved on. For me, looking at my personal attachment versus our bank account helps me get unemotional real quick. If I could hop in a time machine and have someone show me - Here’s what holding onto your ideas lost the company - I would have never made those decisions. Sweatshirts perform better than red carpet gowns? Super, hoodies it is!

No amount of awareness (or time travel) can guarantee that every initiative will be a victory. The goal is to have a winning track record, not an undefeated one. Some days that means pivoting when your plans don’t come to fruition or walking away from a lucrative opportunity to protect the integrity of your brand. The circumstances are always changing. The best way I’ve learned to approach them is to lessen my hold on specific outcomes and try to channel my excitement into what’s working right now. We all wake up with a finite amount of energy. Why not focus on what is propelling us forward? 

How do you know when to stay and when to go? Share your story in the comments!