I started a self-funded tech company around 1998. This was hard tech, hardware and software. And I was the sole engineer doing all the work. This meant 18 hour days, 7 days per week to get the plane off the runway. Two years later, after booking lots of sales, we finally moved out of the garage and I started to hire people. Yes, I ran this beast entirely on my own for two years. A few years later a large well-known company expressed interest in acquiring the technology. The number being floated was in excess of $30MM.
What happened?
Well, 2008 happened. The economic implosion caused this company to second-guess entry into the market we had pursued --which they intended to do by acquiring us. The deal went from being a couple of meetings away from an acquisition to evaporating in front of my very eyes.
The bad news was that the economic downturn truly hurt us over the next couple of years. I had to shut it down in 2010 and lick my wounds.
This thing went from pouring all of our savings and an incredible amount of very hard work into a crazy idea, executing well enough to get a $30MM+ offer to closing the doors and nearly losing it all in the process.
At the time this felt like an abject failure and a waste of ten years of my life. It took me months to get my head back on straight. Today, looking back, I see it as a success. I took an idea from nothing to close to a massive life-changing exit and did so mostly on my own through hard work, grit and determination. That's a success story nobody can take away from me. I learned a lot along the way and most of those lessons were part of success in future endeavors.
Life can be funny and cruel sometimes. You might think you are going through your darkest hours when, in reality, you are growing a solid backbone that will support the rest of your life.
Entrepreneurship is hard. Very hard.