The Devout entrepreneur

I was exposed to the idea of buying a business because I had sold mine. And if that sounds glamorous to you, or has you imagining me on a yacht, I’ll share that I made no money on that transaction, and that it was done hurriedly, in an ill advised manner and out of sheer panic. That was five years ago. What I now realize I did get from that period is an idea of what not to do, an understanding of a sellers’ mindset and position, and some confidence in vetting an operational business (at least in the industry that I know.)

If I were to use this letter as a confessional for a minute, and I think I will, in the years since I sold, I have made at least 30 full business plans and pitch decks, purchased so many URLs that Godaddy has me in a silver customer status and incorporated a host of LLCSs in Delaware which I then had to pay to wind down. I am not proud telling you all this. I am saying it in hushed tones, though you’re reading so you won’t know that. This is my stash of drugs, the porn under the bed, my source of shame. Trusting your own intuition after you feel you made a misstep can be hard. I felt that mine is broken. I confronted being a founder again and got weak knees every time I needed to pull the trigger on a new concept/team/launch. I read about/followed/met other founders and found them to be otherworldly creatures, unabashed and on the rise and believing in the future. (of course there are plenty of miserable, terrified, exhausted entrepreneurs too, but you know when you’re trying to get pregnant and all you see are pregnant women?)

And performance anxiety was new territory for me. I had until this point been fearless to a fault. I remember traversing a ravine with friends at the age of 16 and I offered to go first to which all my friends said; “We knew you’d volunteer to be first.” And I remember thinking, “Why wouldn’t anyone want to do this?”

Unequivocally, personal growth requires risk taking. I know this in my gut, but my risk-taking wings were failing me. Which brings us back to my last email, If I identify as a founder, an entrepreneur, but I lost the stomach to start from scratch, how can I use what I’ve learned to become who I want to be? My husband calls me a ‘Devout entrepreneur.’ And this is accurate. Now my faith had been shaken, and I was looking for a different way to worship.

As Annie Duke writes in ‘Thinking in bets’; paying attention only to results and not to the process skews our assessments. A mistake she’s dubbed ‘resulting.’ If a decision leads to a bad outcome, people may become risk averse, and avoid making similar decisions in the future, even if they were good decisions. This is unfortunate. Decoupling a decision from its outcome is not simple. In my case this would mean giving up on Fashion entirely as I now associate it with stress and misery and am not thinking about the joy and satisfaction I also got from it.

We are the sum total of our experiences. When you pivot, or walk away from a chapter and a career identity, the sense of loss can be profound. There can be a devastating sense of waste there too. Where did that experience go? What were those years for? What will I do with this knowledge/network/ accolades now?

But then there’s also the idea of a sunk cost. Following around a career path that you have deemed not to have gone well for various reasons because you’ve invested years, money and effort in it may not be the smart path forward. It may be better to give yourself a fresh start, cut your losses and try your hand at something you never knew you could do. The stakes with this strategy are high. We’re talking about our life, and our biggest asset, time, and how to best leverage whatever remains of it.

I started to become consciously aware that I was grappling with this problem. I want to cross a river, but the boat I used to know how to use is useless to me because I am now a different person, at a different stage in life and that boat wasn’t responding to my touch. I could. not. get the engine started.

So I began listening out for other modes of transportation. Exploring the idea of being entrepreneurial without being a founder. Decoupling the outcome from the decision. Turns out there are a lot of vehicles out there. My conundrum was figuring out what my assets are, what I have to offer and which type of ship, combined with what I know, would be most unstoppable. I did a little swot analysis on myself;

Buying a business feels a bit like adopting a rescue pup. The business, it’s people and its relationships are established. On the one hand that means you can breathe out, this entity survived the (90%!) start up failure rate, and according to the Lindy effect this means its likely to continue to survive. On the other hand, you’re inheriting all that it’s been through. And that means you better be a fit in the culture, have synergy with the customers, and have a strategy where you can add value. You better understand if that dog is going to attack men with beards, and have a plan as to what to do about it.

Also, and here I will channel Colin from Love Actually, taking your skill set and rewrapping it in a different vehicle can give you a competitive advantage. Colin understood this when he moved from the UK to the US expecting his accent alone would give him an edge with women there.

Tony : That is total bollocks. You've actually gone mad, now.

Colin : No, I'm wise. Stateside I am Prince William without the weird family.

When I started to feel rumblings of wanting to get back into the business space, I avoided fashion, even in my head. I threw myself at other verticals. And (spoiler alert) like in any good story, I came back to realize that the treasure is at home. That I needn’t throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater. And that a lot of what I’ve learned has value in a slightly different vertical with a somewhat buffered risk profile.

All these elements triangulated for me. Business acquisition allows me to keep my identity of entrepreneur but lose the piece of ‘founder.’

Shifting from founder or employee to Business owner/Deal maker means a third vehicle thats not ‘Job’ or ‘Start-up’ but steward to a going concern who brings value-add and can connect the dots to make something bigger.

Finally, staying broadly in the Fashion and Textile Arena gives me a competitive advantage as there are not many people in this space with hands on experience, and that proven experience is needed both for peace of mind for the seller and to qualify for an SBA loan (more on that in the future) and of course to run and grow the thing.

“What matters isn’t what a person has or doesn’t have, it is what he or she is afraid of losing.”

-Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Skin in the Game.

Let’s get uncomfortable!

Tamar