An Inglorious Tale of Relative Success & Mediocre Failure

Sharing My Heart While Closing My Company

I wrote this essay more for myself than I did for you. That’s a selfish thing to say. Isn’t it? But it’s the truth.

Since I was 7 years old, I’ve kept a journal. Often, painstakingly I would record snippets from my life — various successes and trials, wins and losses — that shaped my personality. This record-keeping habit is one of the things of which I am the proudest; perhaps unsurprisingly, ten full journals reside on a shelf adjacent to my bed, forming a makeshift shrine I periodically leaf through.

My first journal was gifted to me by a sweet old lady in the church I grew up. She was the type who toted strawberry candies in her purse that she would dish out to the kids who sat together on the front pew. The little pocket-sized notebook she gave me one Christmas was a hardback and it sported a purple fairy on the front and pink lettering underneath it, informing everyone it was “My First Diary.” To date, it is one of the best (and most well-timed) gifts I’ve ever received.

Due to an obsessive dedication to carefully outlining and recording my thoughts, it might seem strange that I have struggled to “share” these inklings. But what lies at the center of this withdrawal is perfectionism and a fear of failing that does little to help myself or those around me.

It’s true, I am a private person, especially as it pertains to my own pain, challenges, or insufficiencies. While I could portray my tightly closed lips and insistence on figuring it out on my own as strength or independence, the reality is that what keeps me from sharing my story is pride and selfishness: pride in wanting to hide my flaws and selfishness in disregarding how my struggles could have the potential to benefit others.

As I stated earlier, this initial essay is largely written for my sake, but I am sharing (and will continue to share) because I do want to help. I’m tired of going through life on my own, figuring it out for myself, and I’m guessing there are other people who relate to this exhaustion. I aim to cast sunlight on my wounds and reveal blind spots so I may grow faster and, perhaps, help others do the same.

My First Company — Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Learn, and Sometimes You Do a Bit of Both

Only a week after college graduation, I landed a full-time position at a real estate agency as their corporate Tech Driver. In my role, I taught agents how to utilize their customer relationship management tools and marketing software. After only a few short months of being there, I realized that marketing was more fun and potentially more profitable than being a faux corporate trainer. So, I quit that job and became a full-time business owner.

It took me a bit to transition into operating a digital marketing agency. At first, I only ran Facebook ads, figuring out how to optimize them for conversions. I was doing alright, but it was very stressful because most of the people I was advertising for were real estate agents (who are infamously difficult to promote). The laws and regulations surrounding real estate, not to mention what agents advertise — themselves the salesmen — made for a challenging vertical.

My business model changed one day when a friend invited me to dinner and told me about a holy grail called “Vendasta.” During that conversation, my mind exploded with new knowledge about business and the world. I learned there was such a thing as “white-label” marketing solutions and that consequently, marketing agency employees often aren’t the ones doing the client fulfillment. Rather, many agencies outsource their clients’ fulfillment to those white-label agencies or to virtual assistants. During that meal, my friend painted a picture of everything I wanted professionally: to be free as a “digital nomad” with uncapped earning potential and the ability to automate my business down the line.

While I was unsure how it all would work, I trusted my friend’s vision and jumped in “head first.” With only $1000 in the bank (and about $20,000 in student loans), I opened up a full-scale digital marketing agency called Promoticon, offering everything from website design to social media advertising. I was completely overwhelmed and unsure where to turn for help, but I began landing deals almost immediately due to my connections in real estate.

However, after some successes (and forcing momentum where it shouldn’t have even existed), I eventually burnt out. The white-label agency model I had chosen was not optimal or sustainable for a solo entrepreneur. All the work had fallen to me. I thought, when I purchased a subscription to Vendasta, that I was buying access to a marketing team ready to meet my every need and to guide me along the way. That was an unfounded hope.

My beliefs were admittedly idealistic, but nothing could have prepared me for the level of micromanagement needed to run a white-label team. White-label agencies are wonderful for outsourcing certain advertising functions at scale, but if you are aiming to be a comprehensive marketing agency as a solopreneur, they’re inadequate. I needed a team to come along beside me and aid our mission, but often the fulfillment team had a shallow context of my business and would try to get my projects done as quickly as possible; since they had countless other agencies’ tasks filling their queue, they were constantly under pressure and this frequently led to mistakes.

It’s unsurprising, then, that the business model I was once so excited about as my “ticket to freedom” began to drain me. I operated Promoticon for two years and in the second year made nearly twice the amount I made during the first (<$30,000 and $49,000, respectively, for you “Nosy Nellies” out there). However, at that point, I knew which things were malleable and which weren’t. By continually subscribing to Vendasta, I would have to hire an operator and fulfillment team if I ever wanted to step back from the business. And if I were to leave Vendasta, I might as well kiss my customers goodbye.

Many of my clients were ones I’d acquired in the beginning, and just like with the faulty business model, I’d established foolish prices. In the beginning, I had no context for how much work would be required of every deal and so I drastically undercut myself. I also wasn’t much of a salesman initially, so whenever a client would show even the slightest surprise at a price, I would immediately lower it. Thus, it was futile to attempt to move the clients to a different platform — most just weren’t worth the migration headache and I felt they all would be better served, elsewhere.

Closing Promoticon ended up being death by a million papercuts. Maybe I could have made it work, if I’d asked someone older (or at least wiser) than me for help, but I was too prideful to admit weakness. And the real truth is that I could have kept it alive, but if I were to run an agency any longer, I would want to start over, anyways. This leads to the last section of a punitive essay.

Closing a Company that Wasn’t Exactly a Fail, but Wasn’t Exactly a Smashing Success, Either

It isn’t a neat story I can wrap a bow around, is it? I just finished offboarding clients a few days ago, after several months of wrestling to “tie things up.” I didn’t reach great heights of success in the business but had some moderate wins. I think I’ve blundered since I don’t even have an epic “failure” story to preamble great success now. Promoticon was profitable from year one, accrued minimal debt, and had no major liabilities. The whole thing is rather unremarkable.

Consequently, I have struggled to let it go. Because the business wasn’t some smashing success or epic failure, I have struggled tremendously to “unclench” the death grip I have on it.

Interestingly, the pride that kept me from sharing my struggles in the business while I was working it full-time is the same pride that has kept me from wanting to close it down.

And what a mistake that pride is! Only recently, since I’ve started talking about some of the issues I had in the business, did I learn from other experienced marketers ways I could have made Promoticon infinitely more effective.

The struggles I was facing were quite typical in the business model I’d chosen and I was right to be upset. If I’d shared my struggles early on, I could have made adjustments that would have put me in a much better position, long before I had burnt out.

So, I am opening up my experiences and my situation right now for discussion. I still feel bad about certain parts of this chapter. I would love to hear from someone else if you had one or two or even three unremarkable businesses you decided to “pull the plug” on. What was that like? How did you feel? Do you regret anything about those experiences now, or do you think that it was worth it?

I learned a ton, made some mistakes, and have many more things that I would simply change or tweak if I were to do it all over again. And I might. I might wipe the slate clean and start over. But this time, I’m revealing my hand.

“Stream of Consciousness” — A Play at Real Vulnerability

I can’t end this essay without giving a brief example of what my thoughts looked like while closing down Promoticon. It was much harder than I expected, and I think I experienced the grieving process, at least in part. Here is a blurb I wrote in my phone’s Notes app, while contemplating shutting it all down:

I think I’m hearing “Leave it,” but I don’t know what that means. Do I migrate websites to individual hosting? Do I send clients to a different marketing provider within Vendasta? What do I do?

But more importantly, what is the mission? What is the mission that God has written on the flesh of my heart?

Honesty, above all. And more than honesty — truth. Reinventing ways of doing things. Obedience to Him. Creativity. Create. Creation.

I have a fire in me. I don’t know how to quench it. I want God and His voice, but sometimes I avoid it and I don’t know why.

I think a part of me doesn’t want to have to think and listen that hard. It’s exhausting to be that intentional. I think a larger part of me though worries that I’ll hear something “wrong” and then look foolish. Some of what I’ve heard from God was so clear that I’m afraid of messing it up.

I don’t think God wants me to be afraid though. He wants me to be happy, confident, peaceful.

Psalm 121:1–2 KJV“I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, From whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the LORD, Which made heaven and earth.”

I’m supposed to be looking up, not down. And certainly not backwards.

I want Promoticon, in all its inadequacies, to end strong. I want to do right by people. I want to love people and treat them as I am commanded to.

Life scares me, God. Closing Promoticon’s doors feels scary because it feels like a shift into the unknown. At least Promoticon, even though it was a drain mentally and emotionally, it was a steady thing. Predictable. I knew which orders I would hate fulfilling every month. I knew the website team would be at least somewhat incompetent. It all made sense, even though I didn’t like the sense it made.

P.S. I almost removed the name of my agency — PROMOTICON — from this essay, because I didn’t want public embarrassment. Old habits die slowly, unfortunately!

P.P.S. I also nearly didn’t tack the “stream of consciousness” in at the end. That part is very embarrassing, but you asked for it. Or, we’ll assume you did, for my sake.

P.P.P.S. In the ninth hour, I snuck in Promoticon’s annual gross profits for those stinkers who’ll theorize that I’m still lacking transparency if I don’t share numbers. I’d think the same.