Startups are full of highs and lows. Today's a low one.

Yesterday was a really exciting and upbeat day.

But they can't all be like that.

Today we lost a customer, and it was entirely our fault.

I share this because it's often not shared: startups are full of fun and exciting times, but they are also full of really rubbish times.

I guess the good / bad thing about that is you rarely keen a streak of days going that are either entirely good OR bad.

Losing a customer sucks. The silver linings though, in my eyes:

• The customer isn't lost forever. They're lost for now.
• If we never had that customer in the first place, we'd never have learned the things we learned from them.
• Often, a really unhappy customer is a customer than can be turned around, over time, to become a true evangelist.
• Customers who are neither happy enough to tell their friends or unhappy enough to cancel are OK, but a customer driven to the point of cancellation, that can be turned around, can often go on to being a true promoter.
• Nothing bears raw, direct feedback from a customer cancelling: they've got nothing to lose, there's no angle. Their feedback is golden, and massively helps when thinking about what to prioritise on product.

Another thought, when you have 10s of customers rather than thousands, you are at a scale where you can go deep on every single customer and why they are / aren't happy. You don't need extensive data, you don't need product feedback management tools, you need to pay attention, to listen, to objectively note what you hear, and you need to turn that into a plan for what you build. No tool and no one else is going to make those tough decisions for you.

Whether you're having a good or a bad Friday, remember, the streak won't last forever. It's all part of the journey.