WORK | Starting Over a Failed Business

Starting over is something that I dread. It means I have failed, and therefore I need to pick up the pieces and move forward. It is a heart wrenching process, yet vital for you to continue to grow and make better choices. 

I always tell my students to embrace failures. After all, failures play a significant role in learning what strategies worked, what didn't, and where did you go wrong. But I don't deny the mental exhaustion you might develop from dealing with failed projects, the depression that can lock you up in the dark place for what you feel a lifetime, especially when it is a start-up business. You were broke, you invested everything you had, yet it fell short. What would you do? You learn from it.

What I learned running Portly Paperie as a proper start-up business for a year and a half was valuable to me, as a small business owner who were just starting out and testing the depth of the water (note: it was deep). Although I failed maintaining and scaling the business to something substantial, I believe that it is good that it fell short while it was still young, so the losses weren't that painful and I am able to dissect our strategies and pinpoint how I can make it better. There are many websites and business coaches who offer advice on starting over, but if you are a small business owner and you want to try again, I have a couple things I think will be beneficial for you. Here are the things I would do better when I'm starting over my business:

1. The Water is Deep. Do Your Research.

This is extremely important. Know your market. There is no value when you're creating a great product, but no one wants to buy it. If you take a look at Portly Paperie Facebook page, you might see we received reviews praising our product for being high quality and different from generic brands. However, our flagship product was too niche to appeal to the mass market, therefore hindering us to scale the business.

It is okay if you are creating a product specifically to a niche market and know for a fact that your market needs your product. However, in our case, we wanted to create a luxurious product for the middle income group, and that is where we fell short. Middle income groups don't need a luxurious planner, they get these from their workplace. Higher income groups don't need our planner, they need high-end luxury brands'. Plus, Malaysians don't use comprehensive planners, they love flexibility. We should have researched this, and made our product accessible to the mass market. 

2. Start Where You Are with What You Have.

Speaking about being accessible, our major downfall is coming up with luxury product when we didn't have enough capital to scale said product. We spent 90% of our investment on production, and every business owners know this is a wrong practice. We didn't have enough to market our product to the right niche, and we struggled to keep the balances afloat. Our problem was fundamentally, we were perfectionists. We wanted the product to be perfect, so we invested every penny creating it as such. It is laughable now to think that no product is perfect. What we should have done was to create something within the budget that we had, and improve on the flagship product as our business grow.

3. Plan for The Whole Year. And the Year After.

The irony of this statement is we actually sold planners. But we failed to plan thoroughly. As a small business, you always fell into the trap of "going with the flow" and "seeing how it goes". But the truth is, every small businesses become successful from careful planning and knowing the next steps, and knowing how to fall back when the steps are not working. Having a full year strategy carefully planned out will make your team work easier, more efficient, and stress free. Do not decide something at the very last minute. Know what's ahead of you, and plan.

4. You Can't Do It Alone.

When I was running this business, most of the times I wanted to do things myself. I did not delegate because I was worried that my business partners are too busy since they were running their own businesses as well. I also suffered from extreme self doubt that most of the times I could not make decisions and rely to my partners to support my suggestions. This is where I was wrong, and I dare say my biggest mistake. Every business is important and deserves to be treated as such. If your partners cannot commit, that means they don't value the business as you do, and you need to address the issue quickly. Delegation is key. You have a team for a reason, and you need to grow as a team. If you are the leader of your business, take charge, make decisions, and delegate.

5. Forget the Self Doubt.

When you are running a business, you have a lot of ideas and strategies on how you can grow and things you can do. But sometimes, you'd doubt yourself and you'd rather bury your ideas than proposing to your team. Don't be paralyzed by anxiety. It is important to vocalize your ideas. Your team will tell you if your ideas are not going to work, and even better, they can come up with ways to make your ideas better. Even if things are not going to go your way, you have offered your perspective, and your team will contribute with theirs. Remember, if you don't act on your ideas, your ideas will die with you.

6. Be Yourself.

The key of successful business is authenticity. People love brands that stick true to their identity and values. Having an identity is not only important to your business, but to you as well. Your business is an extension of your own identity. So why choose others? For example, let's look at the movies. The reason people love Elle Woods from Legally Blonde is because she is true to herself, despite being ridiculed and pressured to conform. As for us, we tried our best to come up with an identity that has nothing to do with our own. We wanted to be high-end, but none of us are truly high-end. My team was a quirky, intelligent, and bright. And we should have projected that in our brand. 

I hope these insights help you if you are going through tough time starting a business, and wanting to try again. Remember, everything in life is dynamic, nothing stays constant. It is best to learn from things that happened, and move forward.

Good luck!