Getting back up from this....
Fairly long post so stick with me....
I'm in the UK and I've run a travel-related business for the last 12 years. I don't sell flights, holidays etc but a product related to travel and COVID has really hurt us and looks this will continue until end of this year or into next.
The business is run by myself, wife and brother with my wife furloughed at the moment. My bro is the techie so is working on a new system and we aren't being paid. We have a loan but that won't last forever and is something I am massively opposed too but we have no choice as still have to be here to handle cancellations and refunds etc.
The whole situation is really getting on top of me now. I've built this up over 12 years and we live on razor thin margins to do volume - that's just the nature of the specific product. I was using this time to develop a new travel business to a specific destination but that has been put on back burner as we simply don't know when we can sell.
As we have all our eggs in the one basket with this, I've tried to pivot and started looking at developing some Wordpress websites to sell, but as anyone knows, that is so competitive. My real strength is in marketing as I've done all this over the time trading and we sold £5milion worth of business.
It is essentially an e-commerce business as everything is transacted online so we thought we would look at a new ecom business importing and selling from China. We even built a website just with nothing to sell! We've been put of by the massively competitive nature and finding anything that we feel has massive potential.
As I said earlier, marketing is my expertise and people have been coming to me asking for advice. I had spare time so even helped my barber set up an online business and got her going with podcast and marketing channels.
I could look at selling my marketing knowledge but again, that's competitive. I like the idea of a course but there are so many people touting themselves as marketing gurus the whole arena has a real 'rip off' feel. I do think I could bring value but an audience is needed really and I'm starting from nothing.
My emotions have been so bad I really feel like getting a job but I think I just know I would hate it. Every single waking moment is taken up by me looking for the next way of trying to generate some cash.
I was brutally honest with my bro and he thinks we will see a return for travel but this whole experience has really made me think twice and whether it's worth the risk it time and cash investment.
Us company directors in the UK have had no government help so that has made things alot harder as we have not had a single sale since March.
This is really just a rant and an airing off I've needed....I'm 40 this year and planned to sell the business but that is well off the agenda now. I need to pick myself back up but just don't know the direction to turn.
That's tough.
Have you thought about setting up a productized marketing service, even if it is just to get you through the next year or two?
My husband and I just set up a one page landing page connected to an email list for our local greengrocers. They don't have a clue about tech, but are keen to work on the momentum they've had since lockdown.
I am not the sort of person to just sit back but the current situation has really floored us.
I've thought about something similar for barbers but a booking platform using Wordpress for MVP. The covid restrictions means they will now need to take bookings and can see only a handful will have any systems in place. I like the idea of greengrocers too - possibly introduce a subscription based system for them...
I don't normally chime in but it sounds like you're having a tough time and I wouldn't want it to get worse by you going off and trying that "booking platform for barbers" idea.
Been there, done that with a funded startup. Built the marketplace for stylists/barbers/hairdressers, spent a couple million pounds of investors money but ultimately the business failed.
Why? Well...a few reasons (isn't that always the case?!) but the main one being that barbers actively fight against paying any sort of commission or fees for leads or software. Yep, most businesses try to keep their costs down but salons are so cutthroat and tight margined that they put a lot of focus into keeping costs down. There isn't an easy way to keep them paying either. Think about it, once you've sent over a lead and they have their hair cut, what is the barber doing? He/she is chatting away for half an hour about why this customer should come directly to them next time. They'll even offer a discount to make sure they actively avoid your booking platform. It's a constant struggle even though you're adding a lot of value to them, they see it as a cost to be removed.
Anyway, I'm sorry to hear about your travel business. I have a friend in the same industry in a similar situation and it's a massive shame. Good luck with whatever you try next.
Thanks so much for taking the time to reply. I have literally put together a pretty basic system so gain MVP so nothing wasted.
I guess the thing to do would be to interview some potential customers for ideas, or maybe to pre-sell something to see if people are actually willing to buy.
This Mom Test podcast is worth a listen too.
Maybe a job if you can find one to get you through the current storm and come back when things get brighter. If money a worry it's likely to grind you down. Get paid while you work out what to do.
Problem I have is I still need to be in the office to handle customer returns, queries and amendments etc. We have sold significant numbers and these clients still have requirements eventhough we aren't earning from it. I'm probably spending 5 hours per day on this so have time to look at new and other possible avenues.
Without really understanding your business, there's not much specific I can say. However, as someone who travels (or used to travel) ~50% of the year, I can say with confidence: travel will become popular again. In fact, I've bet hundreds of thousands of dollars on it recently by buying up stocks in travel related companies.
That said, it's not going to happen soon. It will probably be 2-3 years before we're back to where we were 6 months ago. Maybe longer. But eventually people will travel again.
If you can weather the storm, stick it out. Travel will come back but it won't be the same, so figure out what's going to be different and try to get ahead of it.
If you don't think you can last 2-3 years, you might want to put it on hold or pack it in.
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