I looked at purchasing a furniture e-commerce business recently. It caught my attention with 1.5M in sales and 50% gross margins.

When I dug into the figures, revenue had declined from a peak of around 3M and was currently losing 250k per year.

The lesson: Find a profitable business model you can scale. Scaling without profitability is a waste of time and money.

Sounds like you built a nice cash machine.

What’s the business?

Cash-E! or e-cash

Like e-mail, but for cash - potential tagline!

I think you need to ask yourself honestly why you went along with this plan at stage and agreed to put yourself into a position you are so unhappy with.

Your parents are grown-ups. They need to take responsibility for their decisions and you need to take responsibility for yours.

It sounds like your paid marketing spend also got out of control as you scaled.

This is more a relationship question than a business question.

Both ways can work. You have different opinions on this particular topic.

It’s more cause for concern that you are unable to resolve your differences and compromise. Especially at this early stage when things are ‘easy’.

You should pick the thing you’re best and just focus on becoming brilliant at that one thing.

Once you are really an expert in one in demand skill, charging a $100ph for remote freelance work is quite possible these days.

Yes.

PS: My house is worth £5k max.

They don’t care about you. They only care what you bring to the table. In this the financial results of the company.

They should be willing to pay you more given that you’ve clearly proven your value, but how much?

You need to substantiate the ‘how much’. You can do this by looking at the extra profits you’ve generated by executing the companies new strategy. You should also talk to some recruiters to see what other options are out there and how much the market is your location is paying. Your next best alternative is the most compelling data point for your bosses.

I agree, your role doesn’t sound like a CEO role. It sounds more like head of operations / COO role. Your primarily focus is people management and execution. Bear that in mind when you’re researching other roles.

Good luck!

Keep it. You said you closed it down?

Surely it would have been better for sell for something than keep nothing.

Didn’t you consider selling to a party who believed it could scale aggressively?