A few years ago prior to having my bundle of joy, I decided to open an online pet boutique. At that time, pet business was one of the hottest market in the country. The US economy was on the rise and consumer spending was unstoppable. My husband was 100% supportive with my decision, so I had my sister in law designing the layout of the website, paid my friends to do the programming that included the database system, searched for vendors, and everything I needed to do to build an online store. Four years later, I decided to close the business with a big “Failure” stamped right across my forehead. As ashamed as I was admitting my mistakes, I would like to share what I think the reasons my business failed.
- I built the business for the wrong reason and as a result, I didn’t put enough time and energy to do research and create a business plan. When I decided to open the business, I was working in a big retail corporation with too much politics and competition among coworkers. I hated my boss, my coworkers and even my job. I was extremely devastated about the whole environment that I was considering quitting. As the business was coming along, things were much better. I got a new boss, new responsibility and I hung out with a different crowd. So I was lucky enough that I never quitted my job; I worked on my business as aside job. Lesson to learn: always do as much research as you can, create a good business plan, and never quit your job until your business is profitable enough to replace your current income.
- I’m very shy and simply not an outgoing person. Creating a business is easy, growing it is the hardest part. You can’t create a business and wait for a miracle that your customers will knock on your door. You have to creatively invite them and market your business. I’m just not an outgoing person. I can’t even tell my friends about my business, let alone approaching strangers. This is just not who I am. I’m not a marketer nor am I a sales person. Lesson to learn: realize who you are not who you want to be. You cannot be a person you are not.
- I didn’t stay focus on start small and grow bigger. I could’ve researched and joined a community with fellow retailers and take the benefit of buying their excessive inventory, combined orders to avoid minimum order requirement from vendors. In 2006 I decided to create a catalog. I could’ve obtained all merchandise for the catalog from other retailers’ excessive inventory at wholesale price and without minimum order requirement. Instead I bought everything from vendors with their minimum order requirement. Lesson to learn: Start from selling your unwanted stuffs from ebay. Ebay is the best tool to learn everything you need to know about online retail.
- It’s important to wear many hats, but most importantly don’t wear hat that doesn’t fit. As a business owner who just starting out, we need to do every jobs that involves around your business. If you’re not an accountant, you are forced to do bookkeeping. You’re not a computer savvy, you’re forced to learn photoshop so you can post items you’re selling into your website. Well, you get the idea. But there are some jobs that it’s better of if you leave it to the professionals. Relating to my catalog project I mentioned above, I’m not a graphic designer. In fact I don’t have a good artistic eye to even creating any type of design. Yet I decided to design my own catalog. I did get a little help from my friend who is a graphic designer. But certain things like that I should’ve leave it to the professional. As a result, I got myself a catalog with poor design.
- Poor negotiation skills. Some vendors, especially the new ones, are open with negotiation. My husband always told me if you don’t feel bad when negotiating, then you don’t negotiate enough. Negotiating price might be a little hard, but you can always negotiationg on the order requirement. Sometimes it migh be more profitable to you if you pay a little extra for less quantity. Lesson to learn: Always consider that everything is negotiable, or at least you should try.
I’m pretty ashamed to myself that I lost about $10k for my failed business. Last year I officially closed the business. Not only it’s not making any profit for the past four years, our current economy is making it impossible to survive. Who wants to buy $40 worth of dog collar if they don’t even know how they can pay their mortage? On top of that, being a mom who has full time job is more than enough for me to handle.
So did I ever regret having a business? Believe it or not, the answer is no. Watching my business failed before it rose is definitely not an easy task. However, it made me realize who I am. I realize that I’m not a business woman. I’m better at sitting behind computer and inspire people, which is why I started this blog. I also applied what I learned from my business and applied it to my job. I started to be more focus on my tasks and projects, joined a couple of networking groups not to seek business opportunities, but to break this shyness and open up myself a little bit. Throughout this whole experience, I would like to thank my husband who stood by me all this time and supported me even though I failed.
Tags: fail business , starting a business
