Why I Failed #001

Why I Failed -

This is the start of a series of posts where I will share my experiences. On this platform, there are countless successful and motivational stories shared by accomplished individuals. To be honest, I am not one of them. That's why I want to talk about failures. For those who dislike me, this will be a good story, and for those who don't know me, it will serve as a cautionary tale. Let's discuss one of my recent failures: failing to scale a business.

This is my biggest failure so far, and I believe it’s the most important one. Enough talk.

In any business, scaling up is crucial. If you want to provide financial support for your family and offer good pay to your employees, you need to scale up. Unfortunately, like many others, I couldn’t do it.

I have worked for seven years on this project. This is mine, this is my creation. I spent more hours on it than with my daughter, so why would I give this to someone else?

One of the lessons I've learned from my current gig is that to scale up, you need to step back. You can't do everything yourself. Even if you think you're Batman, you're still human. You are just one sickness away from failing in your business. For your business to scale, it needs to function without you. But that's my baby, and I didn't want to hand it over to someone else. Tough luck, mate. Business might be your baby, but in my case, I was becoming a parent preventing it from growing. I loved the work and the business so much that we could have hired people better than me to grow it bigger, but I decided to keep it to myself. Selfish, without a doubt.

I am a difficult person by default, but I cannot imagine how asinine and difficult I was during this time. The power struggle between me, my beloved business, and others trying to scale it was intense. Although they were trying to help, I still thought it was an attack. It's funny how when you're attached to certain things, you can't see things logically—a flaw on my end and a warning for those who follow my path.

The problem here is that the moment you give up or something happens to you, the business dies. One day, I received an emergency message. My daughter was in the hospital, and it was a few days before my mom’s birthday. All of a sudden, I woke up. I had spent years working on things I loved but failed to take care of my own. I was paranoid, as my daughter was born on the day (not the same year) my dad died. What if my daughter would be taken on my mom’s birthday? I was paranoid. I rushed out and didn’t really think about work, as I had much more important things to focus on. Soon after, I decided to leave that business. Unfortunately, as I knew, that business eventually died. I failed because I should have made documentation and trained people, but instead, I took on everything. When I was gone, the business couldn't rely on anyone else.

Hence, if you want to see your business grow, you have to let go.