Stop Hiding From Failure.

How Your Lowest Moments Can Inspire Your Greatest Ideas

October 2014.

13k in the business account.

Payroll due in 3 days.

Currently short 14k.

Need a couple of stellar days to stay cash flow positive.

Vendors are circling like vultures…Can’t blame them as payables approach 60 days.

Hard to believe only four years earlier we had opened with such high hopes and expectations. The jubilation of 18 months of planning and fundraising had gradually waned as we burned through our working capital, drained reserves and finally leaked our entire credit line. Current feelings were closer to a living nightmare. The contrast from then and now was uncanny.

To say our grocery store & cafe was struggling would be an understatement. I had drained my last after-tax savings account a few weeks earlier when we couldn’t pay rent. These were dark days, not far from my bottom. Sleep deprived and becoming increasingly desperate, we were still not ready to give up the dream. I still cringe when I think about my false optimism during this time.

This year felt like another version of GroundHog Day. Every spring we’d catch a bit of momentum only to have a competitor open less than a mile away. New year, same story. 5 years, 5 new groceries. The latest was a strong national chain that had moved their corporate headquarters to town. They weren’t going anywhere. I remember sitting upstairs in the office looking over financials. Trying to figure out who we could pay, how much and when.

I felt Helpless. Depressed. Dejected.

I recall thinking there’s no chance we make it through this week without bouncing checks unless we have some sunny days. Our patio was one of the bright spots of the business. If it was nice enough to be outside, we were always busy. Especially in October. Outdoor diners come in droves to enjoy one of the last days of Indian Summer.

I’d typically have the weather channel on a minimized browser and would check the forecast obsessively. A gorgeous early fall afternoon. Forecasts predicted rain but we haven’t gotten wet yet.

I take a peak over at the camera monitors. It’s busy.

We’d recently been forced to let Ginsburg go despite the fact that he was the best manager we ever had. Without any experienced leaders on the floor there’s no place I should be other than servicing customers and helping my team.

But I’m upstairs in the office. Not really accomplishing much.

What reason could I possibly have to not be downstairs attending to customers during our afternoon rush?

Truth? I was scared. Many afternoons you could say that I was hiding.

Hiding? Hiding from what, you may ask?

Before trying to understand my state of mind at the time, you’ll need a few more pieces to this puzzle.

Adrenaline and High Hopes.

We opened our doors on August 13, 2010, and from this day, we pledged to be solid community partners.

There were a handful of local organizations we regularly supported. We donated to hundreds of groups over the years. Subsidies ranged from $20 gift cards to $10,000 endowment checks from my partner’s foundation. Despite the fact that our business never operated in the black, when a non-profit requested a donation, we typically obliged. All our mentors told us the same story. If you’re a good community partner than over time the community will catch on and reciprocate. We obliged and held faith that we would begin to feel the benefits.

Once the word got out about our generosity, the “ask” became overwhelming. No matter how many people we said “yes” to it seemed there were always three or four more standing behind them.

Over time the giving got harder. As our working capital, reserves and credit line evaporated so to did our passion and enthusiasm to give back.

Finally we hit a wall. I remember the day my partner and I agreed to eliminate gift card donations, the final subsidy the business offered to local non-profits. We simply could no longer afford to do it. We wanted to be great partners. Heck, we had been great partners, but it was time to try something different. Clearly what we’d been doing wasn’t working.

In a grocery store & restaurant business, margins are razor thin. Our team could hustle for 12 hours and on a good day we might net a few hundred dollars. This assumes no wine bottles, dishes or glasses were broken, no theft, and nothing was given away. Simply put, we began to see donation requests as our thin line between profit and loss. The decision to eliminate business donations felt like the right thing to do, even felt good, for the moment. The fact is this decision hadn’t changed much. Years of cutting payroll, ordering lean and eliminating overhead had already put our business at risk. Worse yet, the donation requests were still coming. The only difference is they were being subsidized by my partner and me and not the Lemon Tree Grocer. You see neither my partner nor I had the heart to say “No” to anyone that walked through our doors.

Giving, Giving, Gone.

For a while, I enjoyed interacting with community members that sought donations for their non-profits. There are countless worthy causes and so many fantastic people that tirelessly support the campaigns. I found pleasure in talking to these folks about their passions. It felt good reaching into my pocket, pulling out $20 and buying a gift card. I loved making personal connections with potential customers and community members. I felt great knowing I was doing my part to keep the community strong. Some days I’d dream of all these good deeds making a positive impact on our community.

I mean of course a community that we had so staunchly supported would never let us fail…

While I’m sure many we gave to did in fact support us right back, there were others that never did. We were just another stop on their door-to-door fundraising tour.

“Hi Shaun, My child goes to the local middle school. We’re doing a charity auction to support their school. I haven’t been here since you guys opened but it really looks great. Had no idea you were selling gluten free items! That’s really cool.”

And so it went, over and over and over.

I’d reach into my pocket, pull out $20 and head over to the cashier to buy another gift card to give to someone’s fundraising efforts, hoping our gluten free sales would see an increase.

Unfortunately, they never did.

Our donations never resulted in any positive or notable revenue trends. As my bank accounts were slowly drained and our losses mounted over the years, the positive attitude and enthusiasm to be a great community partner waned.

While I once had savings that afforded me a comfortable lifestyle, those days were a distant memory. Gone was my home. The vacations I had enjoyed were no longer. In their place sat a mound of bills and a mountain of stress.

I was scared. My overwhelming anxiety of being labeled a non-community partner was more powerful than the need to help my struggling team. It sounds crazy when I think about it now. At that time, it was my dark reality.

So I hid.

I believed I was hiding from the moms that would come in for donations after they picked up their kids from school. Thought I was avoiding the dads who stopped in to ask for a gift card on their way home from work.

At that time I believed if I could escape these daily solicitations then I wasn’t letting anyone down. It was something to grab onto during a time when nothing felt comfortable. Despite my cloudy mental state, I still knew this was all wrong.

How did I get here?

How do I get out of here?

We closed the doors of Lemon Tree Grocer for good on January 1, 2016.

I’ve always been told by others that I’m a generous person, sometimes to a fault. In the throws of stress and anxiety, my generosity felt like a burden. But it made me feel great to help others. Giving back to the community that, ideally, supports me and my business, and for a time it gave me a sense of purpose.

Following some months of reflection I had an opportunity to step back and think about these experiences from a fresh perspective. I had some serious realizations about my fear. Where it was coming from. Why it had so much power over me. Most importantly, how I could grow from it.

I was hiding from my own failure. Fearful of a low perceived value to the community.

These were my own insecurities… or were they?

For the first time, I realized, I was not alone.

Generosity inspires me, it always has. Despite the terrible feelings I had while my business failed. Regardless of my negative experiences, I want to be generous. I want my businesses to give back. As a human being I desire the warm feeling that accompanies a good deed. Deep down I knew many of my peers had suffered in similar ways. Struggled with the same dilemmas.

And so it began. My peer outreach tour. Hundreds of conversations occurred and in nearly all cases the sentiment was the same.

The “donor fatigue” that exists today between small business owners and their surrounding community organizations, is not only real, it’s rampant.

I’ve spoken to many, who like us, give till it hurts. Not just so people will come back and support them, but because they care about the neighborhoods in which they do business.

The challenge for all small business owners is that having donations come back in the form of growth is a necessity — not a benefit. All too often, it’s this difference that keeps the lights on and the doors open.

Fellow small business owners: our confidence may waiver, but our purpose never should.

Obsessing about the strained relationships of owners and their communities inspired me to seek the answer to this problem. A solution that works. A sustainable reciprocity that allows my friends and fellow small business owners to keep giving, even when they struggle, without breaking the bank.

So began my search for a reciprocal commerce system to fill this need. A scenario where Everyone Wins. Once I realized that no program existed that truly bridged the gap between two groups that desperately need one another to survive, I came up with my own.

Over the last year and a half I’ve partnered with small business owners, superstar fundraisers, and executives from successful community fundraising programs to develop Koha.

I’m building a business that allows us small business owners to be generous, but still keep our heads above water.

Named for the Maori custom of giving and reciprocity, Koha, allows small business owners to give back to the communities that help them thrive. By facilitating a true reciprocal commerce model, owners can finally give without putting their business at risk.

Most importantly, small business owners like me can stop hiding.

Stay tuned. The solution is near.

Shaun Black is the Founder of Koha, launching Fall 2017.

#WhenInDoubt by Shaun Black. New interviews every Friday, here on Medium.

Follow @mrshaunblack on Instagram and Twitter for more small business insights and inspiration.