You don’t notice the exact moment a good year turns into a hard one. It doesn’t arrive like a storm; it leaks in slowly. A delayed payment here. A key hire leaving there. A project that seemed like a sure win slipping into silence.
For me, that year came like that—quiet at first, then loud enough to drown out everything else. It was the year I questioned whether I still wanted to be an entrepreneur.
When the Floor Gives Way
The first blow was financial. A major client—nearly 30% of our revenue—pulled out after their funding fell through. No warning. Just a polite email thanking us for our “excellent service” and explaining they had to shut down.
I’d built the business to survive lean months, but this wasn’t lean—it was a cliff. And in that moment, certainty evaporated. The cash flow projections I trusted were useless. Every plan for the quarter became guesswork.
The People You Lean On Start to Slip Away
Not long after, my operations head resigned. Personal reasons, nothing dramatic. But losing someone who could run the ship while I focused on growth left me exposed.
The team felt it too. Slack channels were quieter. Stand-up meetings were shorter. Everyone was doing their job, but the energy—the relatedness—was fading. We were surviving, not building.
The Reputation Hit You Don’t See Coming
In the middle of this, a small but influential partner publicly criticised our work on social media. It wasn’t entirely fair, but in business, perception can move faster than truth.
My status in that niche market took a hit overnight. Calls I thought would be warm suddenly felt cold. I realised how fragile public credibility can be when you’re already fighting fires internally.
The Spiral of Bad Decisions
Stress makes you reactive. I started chasing short-term revenue over long-term value. I took on clients whose goals didn’t align with ours, just to fill the gap.
It wasn’t fairness to the team—they were working harder for projects we shouldn’t have taken. It wasn’t fair to the business either. Every hour we spent patching holes was an hour stolen from building something sustainable.
The Breaking Point
By mid-year, I was exhausted. My calendar was a wall of back-to-back calls. I was working weekends, answering emails at midnight, and still feeling like I was falling behind.
The worst part? I felt like I’d lost autonomy over my own business. I wasn’t leading anymore—I was reacting. The company was driving me instead of the other way around.
The Quiet Decision That Saved Me
One morning, I opened my laptop, stared at my inbox, and closed it again. I took out a notebook and wrote two questions:
- What can I stop doing right now that won’t kill the business?
- What will rebuild stability the fastest?
Those questions gave me back a sliver of certainty. I cut non-essential projects. I renegotiated contracts. I paused hiring. For the first time in months, I could see a path that wasn’t just “keep running until you collapse.”
The Hard Conversations
I called a team meeting and told them the truth. No spin. We’d had setbacks. We were cutting back. It would be a hard few months.
Instead of fear, I saw something unexpected—commitment. People offered to take on extra work, to delay raises, to reach out to their networks for leads. That relatedness—knowing we were in it together—started to rebuild our momentum.
Rebuilding Reputation the Slow Way
The public criticism still stung, but I decided to respond not with arguments but with proof. We delivered exceptional work for the clients we kept. We shared case studies backed by real results.
Gradually, the market noticed. That status I thought I’d lost forever came back—not because I defended it, but because I earned it again.
Ending the Year Standing
By year’s end, we weren’t back to record-breaking numbers, but we were stable. The team was smaller but stronger. I’d rebuilt our client base with people whose goals matched ours.
Most importantly, I had my autonomy back. I wasn’t chained to reactive firefighting. I was making deliberate moves again—choosing projects, clients, and priorities that fit the business I wanted to run.
Why I’m Glad That Year Happened
It’s easy to wish away the hardest year of your life. But looking back, it stripped away illusions I didn’t know I was carrying.
I learned that certainty is fragile, but you can rebuild it. That relatedness isn’t just culture—it’s survival. That status is earned in silence, not noise. That fairness means aligning your actions with your values, even under pressure. And that autonomy is the point of entrepreneurship—without it, you just own your own job.
That year nearly broke me. But it also made me a better entrepreneur than the good years ever could.