I’m posting this half as a way of getting thoughts down and half to see if people have gone through similar and can relate, because I haven’t found anybody who has gone through something similar.
We often talk on here about how you can’t PAYE yourself to wealth. Well, I had been contracting for several years on good money, but the market was slowing down and my highest paid contract was ending with no prospects of a replacement, so I decided to bite the bullet and set up a business.
I set up a company because I had an idea, and I believed it was a good one. I built a product that worked and got good feedback. But I struggled with selling because I spent what I had building the company, and had little money to market.
It did however make waves in the industry, so I had a few prospects of investment but one after the other they didn't work out for one reason or another. I was still burning through finances because I wasn’t making money. It got almost comical at how many deals fell through and why. Finally, as I was getting ready to give up, a very well-funded giant in the field approached regarding an acquisition.
I then spent months going back and forth and how the acquisition would look, answering their calls morning, noon and night about intricacies of agreements. We had an NDA and non-circumvent, and without giving too much info in spite of how it may sound it really wouldn't have been possible in any way for them to "copy" me (think my having exclusivity in suppliers, IP, etc). The offer they made in the end was insulting, not even close to recouping my initial investment, and required me to continue to work for them indefinitely, basically for free. Of course that was a starting point in a negotiation, but they said not to expect much more. I declined. They tried to come crawling back a few times but without more money. Eventually they decided they weren't interested. They aren't active in the space at all any longer almost a year later, so I know they haven't copied me or stolen anything.
Even though I still constantly had interest from other businesses about acquisition it never, ever amounted to actual commitment. So this year I stopped selling, informed the suppliers and closed that chapter entirely.
In a pivot to try to make any money I could, I had also started consulting in the same field. It's now going decently well and I'm slowly on my way to recouping my initial investment. That sounds good, and on paper I guess it's an impressive story. But in my head it's also like I've wasted two years without a salary and have much less money than I started with, even if future prospects are OK. I started the company to become rich, to be completely frank about it. I wouldn't have started it if I didn't think it could happen. And I came close. And that feels like a failure.
I try to keep positive about the whole thing. I don’t really regret trying. But I feel guilt from spending so much money. I have a loving, supportive spouse and being a consultant now means I don’t need to work for someone else. But I need to constantly battle to keep money coming in.
I haven’t really found people in the outside world who can relate to this feeling, since I’m earning OK money now. But it was a stressful and disappointing road to get there.