I’m contemplating closing down a business and suffer the loss of 200k of my currency (about usd 50k). Redditors here talk about success stories, how about losses? What’s your biggest loss?
Do not close down your business, sell it instead. If you offer it with an owner payments through future sales… You don’t have to take a Loss.
Currently, invested about $25,000 USD in the past year that is just about a total loss. It’s not devastating but regrettable in hindsight where I say “I knew I shouldn’t have done that.”
I had a customer that was doing about $1.2-$1.5m a year with and average GM% of 26% consistently for 8-10 years. The sad story of the owner gets a divorce, gets into drugs, starts partying, and starts to ignore the business and it folds. All the customers that replaced the folded business were all out of state buying in their home states. I have recovered some of the lost sales in other customers but trying to find an extra $350k in GM a year has been rough.
My worst loss was investing in a friend’s ‘revolutionary’ product that ended up being more ‘revolutionary’ in how quickly it failed. Down 50k and a friendship. Ouch.
One of my dad’s friends did this. We totaled up everything and he owes about $1.5m in total to various people. Friends, banks and even his parents. Wildest part was this was like is 4th failed business. 4/5 of them failed and soon to be 5/5 because he neglected the one that did work trying to get his next one going
I wanna know about this one too, what was your mates revolutionary product! Lmao
Ouch indeed! What was the revolutionary product?
Lost 6 gyms and a restaurant due to Covid lockdowns. Probably $400k usd in total losses. It sucks but life goes on. Trying to pivot to manufacturing.
My father’s business lost 100k when a client company turned around and filed bankruptcy. That nearly cost him his business.
Just recently a delivery went wrong, happens alotx wich gave me the choice of taking the hard to sell item back losing 2500 in sales, or paying 300 to fix it… These things really add up.
I choose to pay the 300 but really takes a dip in my markup and it’s ery frustrating
I’m really sorry to hear about your difficult situation. Business losses can be incredibly challenging and emotionally taxing. It’s essential to remember that setbacks are a part of any entrepreneurial journey, and many successful entrepreneurs have faced significant losses before achieving success.
If it helps, my biggest loss was when I invested a substantial amount in a startup that didn’t make it. While it was disheartening at the time, it taught me valuable lessons about risk management and due diligence.
Don’t be disheartened by your current situation. Sometimes, it’s the adversity and the lessons learned from losses that pave the way for future success. Many successful individuals have faced failures and setbacks but used them as stepping stones towards achieving their goals. Keep your head up, focus on learning from this experience, and consider it an investment in your future success. Wishing you the strength to navigate through this challenging time.
biggest loss was 10 years of my time I’ll never get back. Money can be made, but time can’t.
Been there… 14 years barely getting by and years with not enough business income to pay myself. Took part-time side gigs to pay my bills at home. Finally sold business for less than half of what I paid during Great Recession and considered myself lucky.
Over a decade lost of when I could have made much more money with a fraction of the stress.
Last year I had to reduce my fee with my major client from 100k$+, to 34k$.
Is not a loss per se, but it was a crisis that forced me to survive with the bare minimum.
Next year, with any luck, I will get to 47k$. Still less than half of what we had 2022.Ok, here goes:
I shut down my business in January 2022 due to insufficient cash flow. past due receivables had increased to over $50k. After lending the business money in Nov and Dec 2021, I decided on Jan 22 it was time. I hired an attorney to legally dissolved the business.
Consequentially, I had a SBA Loan (Federal loan) bal of $160k US, and 2 credit cards totalling $27 k plus a loan from a family member for $20k.
Personally, I was liable for $207k US. I tried to negotiation a compromised settlement with 3 creditors. SBA compromise was 80%. Which didn’t help much. One of the banks had written off the debt and had no interest in a settlement.
We hired the attorney who dissolved the business, again, and filed personal bankruptcy. The mental aspect was difficult, but once we came to the realization that we could either pay off everything from our retirement account or utilize the bankruptcy process.
It was the best decision and easiest process. Given the fact we were a small business operating as an LLC with excellent bookkeeping and accounting records, the process was very straight forward. Fortunately we’re in a state with a lot of “consumer” protections; no risk of losing our house, cars or retirement money.
I lost $3.2M when a “business partner” broke and agreement and stole a deal behind my back. L’s and W’s all come.
Take good notes. Learn from your mistakes and others. Have a good attorney and a good accountant. You’ll bounce back.
Our biggest single loss was about 60K, for wages that I put on a credit card instead of laying people off. We had just spent the last 2 years building up our crew (specialty contractors) and going after bigger projects. We hit a slump in between jobs that just kept stretching on.
I just didn’t want to lay people off. But then of course, we HAD to. And once work started coming back it took us 3 years to pay off that debt. We refinanced it thankfully. But that taught me a very good lesson about going into debt to keep people employed. It also informed our choices going forward about building up a large crew. We have only gotten smaller and smaller (less employees) with more investment into tools and machines and technology. Our overhead shrank, the problems with finding good people shrank - and we’re able to be more nimble overall.
We just lost a $1.5 million dollar client because some folks in the room didn’t feel like it was necessary to spend $25K in tech upgrades that the client was requesting. The partners thought it wasn’t necessary this past year despite my objections. Turns out the client went to a different vendor that did just that and now we look like total idiots.
I take losses all the time. In 2022, I read a purchase agreement incorrectly and as a result took a loss of $40k as multiple lawyers said if I try to fight it , it could get way more Expensive. lesson learned