|
When you realise your start up isn’t working, the smartest thing you can do is either sell it to someone who has the resources to do perhaps what you cannot to make it a viable product or service, or give up and move on to something new. To persist endlessly in something that isn’t going to do anything but drain your resources financially and emotionally, is a much bigger failure in the long run. What do you have to lose if you persist with this start up that’s going nowhere vs, what do you have to lose if you just cut your losses now? Honestly, most start ups actually fail. It’s a part of the process. People always think their start up will be the one that doesn’t fail, but it’s because humans are inherently over-optimistic about their businesses. They always think they’ll have them established more quickly, for much less money and work than it actually takes. Take the lessons you’ve learned from this try, and try and apply them to a new idea or start up. If it makes you feel better, I too started a business last year. However, I knew it would likely fail, but I still wanted to give it a go to see if it would work for my lifestyle and I was using it predominantly as a tax deduction anyway. After about 6 months however, I realised my business model was quite frankly not sustainable for the long term and was probably going to cost me more than I had to gain from persisting. Thus, I applied for a job somewhere, and I am in the process of shutting my business down. Does that mean I’m done with trying new things? No. It just means, I’ll do things differently next time.
For now, I’m taking the time to ‘recover’ from the burnout, and I’m thinking about new ideas for things I can try later down the track when I’m ready to go again. |