The End is Near…

…and what a crazy unexpected end it is.  Of course, this is not the ending I expected five years ago when I “quit my day job” and dove into TrueBody full-time.  That bright-eyed first-time entrepreneur thought that by this time she’d be transitioning a successful start-up into the next phase of becoming a steady-state profitable business, and thinking about her next venture.

Well, I got that last part right….

But this is not even the ending I expected three months ago when my board and I decided we couldn’t keep the company running as is and needed to find someone to buy TrueBody.  I thought I would find a buyer who would want me to stay on with the company and continue to lead it, at least for awhile, to the success that I still feel is just around the corner.  That seems to be the way acquisitions go from my experience.  Over the summer I found a couple viable prospects which yielded two offers along these lines.  I set a goal to have a deal finalized (or darn close to it) by Aug. 31.  And I thought I’d gotten there, albeit by the skin of my teeth.  I got the call around 7pm on Aug. 31 from one of those prospects saying “let’s do it!” and even got a small portion of the capital invested the following week.  But things started falling apart after that and on Sept. 28, they pulled out.

So here I am on Oct. 2, waiting to hear from one last prospect who promised me an answer this week.  If he doesn’t come through, it’s pretty much the end.  I’m almost out of inventory and if I can’t ship soap, well….

I met with a bankruptcy attorney last week  – just in case.  And I’m feeling today that it very well might be the way things end up.  I sent out a long email to my investors last Friday to let them know what might be coming.  That was the scariest email I’ve ever written.  Most of my investors are my friends and family and I couldn’t help but feel like I’m letting them all down, not to mention causing them financial pain.

Now four days after I sent that email, I’ve got to say I am totally blown away by the caring and supportive responses I’m getting from those people whose money I’ve lost. One says he’d invest with me again, another is offering possible work on a project, one even offered to help out with my family’s finances if we need it.  Each of these and many others have said I should be proud of what I’ve accomplished and that I haven’t let them down at all.  Wow. I never expected this!

Whatever the outcome in the next few days, whether it’s acquisition or shutting down, I will celebrate either way.  Life will go on.

An Entrepreneur is Born

I never considered myself an entrepreneur.  I followed a somewhat traditional career path.  I went to college.  I worked for four years.  Then I went to business school.  After which I worked for big corporations…and then small entrepreneurial companies, but I didn’t see myself as the “ big idea” person so I didn’t think I was an entrepreneur. 

Then one day, 17 years into my career, out of the blue, I found myself out of a job.  Granted, it was a job I hated and had been trying to get out of for over a year by creating a new job for myself within the company.  I guess that‘s what we now call an intrapreneur:  being creative within an existing company, but it’s really not the same.  It’s safe. Well, it’s safe if you can be free and creative, and keep your nice salary and benefits.  But that’s not how it worked for me.  I was told “we like what you’re proposing but the company just can’t afford it right now and since you don’t want to be in marketing anymore….”  Yikes! 

In the end, it was a much needed shove out of the nest, and happily, a gentle one.  Of course, I could’ve tried to find a new nest (i.e. job).  I suppose that’s what most sane people would do.  But the crazy entrepreneur in my head started telling me I could leave the tree altogether, test my wings and fly.  I chose to fly.

Now, I didn’t jump right from that job into being an instant entrepreneur.  When I lost my job, I was three months pregnant with my second child, as well as being the significant contributor to our family income and source of health insurance. Double, triple, quadruple yikes!  But even with all that responsibility on my shoulders, I couldn’t help but feel that this was an opportunity of a lifetime to do my own thing. I’d been thinking about doing my own thing for a long time and I guess I was always too scared…or actually, I think I was too comfortable to make the leap.  It’s hard to give up salary and benefits and a job that’s easy (if not mind-numbingly tedious), especially when you’ve just started a family.  Security is a seductive thing. 

When I get really honest with myself, I admit that I initiated that job loss even if it wasn’t the way I wanted it to happen.  I’m just not one of those people who can “do what you gotta do” to earn a paycheck and then try to find my passion after hours.  I want to love what I’m doing.  And if something isn’t working, I try to fix it. 

That’s what makes me an entrepreneur.

But as I said, I didn’t jump right in.  I negotiated a very nice severance package that allowed me to finish out my pregnancy as an employee and then have enough money in the bank to spend six months with my newborn daughter.  From there, I eased back into work doing consulting.  I wrote business plans and helped clients start new businesses and a non-profit organization.  That’s when the crazy entrepreneur in my head started screaming.  I wanted to do this myself, not consult others.  Luckily, my friend, Rob, came to me with his crazy idea he called “natural Dial.” 

That day in early December 2006, TrueBody and an entrepreneur were born.