37
15 Comments

I built a 7-figure-business and stepped back from running it. It's probably been worth it.

I've played many thoughts around in my head around the business that I indie hacked.

There are days where I wish I could just be rid of it, and have it out of my mind.

Then there are other days when I feel like I should never sell it, or that I should keep holding on to it for just a bit longer.

There are definitely days where I want to shout in frustration, but instead I have to hold my tongue and suffer in silence.

I did make some initial inquiries about selling it and they all felt off. And truth be told many were not interested in a business that wasn't purely SaaS (we had majority events with membership as a much smaller percentage).

But as always, I come back to my ethical and indie roots. Business for me is not really about the money, but I do want to benefit as much as I feel is right.

Business for me is about doing the right thing and using what we make to empower others to do more of the right thing. Not all right things make money, but the rosie-ness in me believes it balances out in ways you would never expect.

2020 was a hard year on many fronts for the business, mostly because of COVID and losing 70% of our revenue.

But the team stuck together.

No one quit.

No one was laid off.

We all made sacrifices.

We had stressful discussions.

We had many months of making a loss.

Thankfully we were not greedy and had savings in the bank!

The past 3 months or so have been profitable 🙌

The team pulled together to do what they can to survive.

I will never say that I will never sell the business, life changes and at some point, it may truly make sense to sell.

But for now, the right thing to do is give the team the space and the chance to grow. I'm super proud it keeps 8 people employed and I'm confident that if we can survive a pandemic then we can thrive even more afterwards.

It's been a tough slow process separating us from it. I've barely done anything for it in months. My husband has had a harder time detaching himself, but that's improving now too. He has a counter for the days since his last request for help, it's been over 30 days now. 🥳

Hopefully, we'll never have to sell and my husband and I can just get better at managing it as a business owner.

Happy to answer any questions around this 👇

  1. 5

    Wow, that sounds amazing, I don't have any specific question but would you be up to jump into a Clubhouse room sometime to talk more about your experience?

    I'd love to really get into your journey from starting out as an IndieHacker growing your own business to 7 figures then stepping back, becoming IH's moderator and then going on to create Rosieland, maybe if anyone else is interested chime in below and convince Rosie to do it!!!

    1. 3

      I can do a Clubhouse session 🙌

      1. 1

        Awesome!

        I just followed you on Twitter and I'll DM sometime this week or early next week to set something up - thank you so much!!!

  2. 1

    nice thanks for sharing. its hard. But there is hope

  3. 1

    Thanks for sharing Rosie.

    Deciding on whether or not to close (or exit) a business you created is a tough one to make. Just closed down a similar-sized, well regarded business I was working on for the last 13 years.

    Realized over the last few years that I just didn't like the business category (online apparel). So in Oct 2020 I started winding down the business, and by December 31, 2020 it was 99.9% wound down. Was a LOT of work to do.

    Had about a dozen acquisition-related discussions, but none of them felt right -- similar to you. There are still some entities interested in acquiring the brand, so we'll see what happens.

    Would love to participate in a Clubhouse room, but I don't know how to get an invite unfortunately.

    1. 1

      I have a Clubhouse invite if you can DM me on Twitter your mobile number. You need an iPhone too.

      1. 1

        Thanks so much!

        Now I have to get a Twitter account.....and an iPhone 🤣

        I'll take a rain-check, but will be in contact to take you up on your offer.

  4. 1

    I am in awe of admiration for losing 70% of revenue and not having layoffs. 👏👏👏

    I wish more businesses were like that and I plan on having the same approach on Polygloss when we can employ people.

  5. 1

    Thanks for sharing an update - great info as always and I am very glad to hear that you guys are back to being profitable.

    Could you talk about what made you decide to step away from the business and decide to run MoT more passively?

    Do you think you and your husband's time will be needed later down the road to potentially expand the business further?

  6. 1

    Hi Rosie, thnx for sharing. Awesome post as always. Love your vision on managing a business.

    Question, was there something specific that you did to generate profit again? People have been talking about strategic pivots during the pandemic, but did you pulled something of like that too, or did business just picked up again.

  7. 1

    Thank you for doing the right thing and empowering others to do more of the right thing, @rosiesherry! We need more rosie power in this world 🙏

  8. 1

    Big fan of your posts here. Thanks for sharing your story.

  9. 1

    Glad to hear things worked out with the Ministry. As someone who has done QA for years I always felt that community was a bit underserved, I was never able to find a good group on any of the social media platforms. I know part of that was I was doing a lot of manual QA for a communications company and many of the communities seem to center around front end web testing ( which I also did ). I think part of the problem is that QA / Testing seems to be just a quick stop on a larger career path for many that usually leads to developer or something else so sometimes communities don't flourish for testers like they would for developers. In any case, good luck!

  10. 1

    This comment was deleted 3 years ago.

    1. 1

      @IndieHacker423 This doesn't seem to have anything to do with Sherry's post

Trending on Indie Hackers
How I grew a side project to 100k Unique Visitors in 7 days with 0 audience 47 comments Competing with Product Hunt: a month later 33 comments Why do you hate marketing? 27 comments $15k revenues in <4 months as a solopreneur 14 comments Use Your Product 13 comments How I Launched FrontendEase 13 comments