A founder shut down his skincare business despite his team's anger and his own tears, while his wife celebrated. He argues that closing a business is harder than starting one, and the right decision often feels lonely.
I made a pivot that nobody really believed in, and yet it was the most important decision of the next 10 years of my life. It's really interesting how many people, when it comes to making decisions, they want to be popular. At the end of the day, between popular and the right decision is a big gap and often a lot of loneliness. But you know what? Had to make that decision to shut a business down, move forward, and do what needed to be done. I never forget making that decision. I had a skincare company that I just shut down. I sold all the product off, and I never forget it. Standing in the driveway, tears pouring down my face, my wife standing next to me jumping for joy as if she won the lottery. You could never have two more extreme emotions around that company. But you know what? I had to make the decision to shut things down. And many of our team members said to me it was the wrong thing to do. But you know what? Once I shut that down, the biggest learnings came from it. I say to people many times, starting a business is easy. Shutting one down is very complicated and way harder than starting a business. So I want you to think about this for yourself. Are you making the popular decisions to keep everyone happy? Or are you making the right decisions even though they're not popular, even though you might feel a lot of loneliness, so you get your business in the right direction so that you do what's good for you, your family, the business. It's not a popularity contest. It's about doing the right thing.
