Pull The Plug

It's the end of an era.. I am ending one of the old side hustles!

There is always a time and a place for something. When it comes to having a small business, there are times where it is going great, and there are times when it's really not worth it anymore. The latter is for sure the case for the micro-enterprise that we had.

We'd been selling things online for a few years now. Like most people, we've found a way to get a little niche into something and then take the ball and run with it. Over time though, that ball was worth less and less, but the time wasn't changing in terms of the devoted time to make it run. Granted, we put less effort into it as time went on, which brings reduced results, but it was waning.

Like many online businesses, during the lockdown years, as much as those pissed me off in terms of being completely unnecessary, it did a lot of good in some interesting ways. A lot more people were shopping online than they would before, and we delved right into that niche and made some decent money. Nothing that you could flash around like a dumbass, but really when you think about it, the money wasn't bad at all!

There were some others that were in that niche as well and they played the wrong game and ended up going into lots of debt which then closed down and had a lot of other cascading effects.

We thankfully didn't get into a bind like that because we were more aware that the time for it was finite and we needed to treat it like a business, not a debit card. Money went in for reinvestment, and it came out the other end as a bit more than we put into it, so it was an overall net-positive. A lot of people, sadly, can't say that same thing so we knew we were fortunate!

A few times this year though, we were looking at the numbers and realized that it was sadly dwindling more so than it had before, and it was eating into the meager returns that were coming in. We knew it was time to just shut it down while we were ahead.. it was a tough choice but a necessary one!

There are so many stories of people who try to start a business and end up not knowing that the decisions they make are the wrong ones. We also had no idea, really but we had wanted to put in the time and effort to make it provide something, so it ended up going pretty well for a while. We even tried to coach some people that were doing similar things, and thankfully it worked out for a small number but most ignored the things we were saying which is fine, to each their own.

It was bittersweet to call it quits though, despite the fact that it truly was the right time. Having to tell the people that got our stuff for so long that we were no longer going to have the business was tough, but thankfully they understood and had some other similar options for what they were wanting, so that was a good transition for them. It's always good when you can help them get what they want elsewhere so it's not a total loss for them!

The next question now is: what other business could be stood up in its wake? That's the tough one!