The past few months have been very hectic for me. My business demand grew much quicker than I could supply to my customers, an exciting problem to have. I pushed my limits multiple times, scrambling to fill orders, and grow my business. I ran into obstacles, costly ones. I kept persevering and pushing through, but I was feeling burned out. I knew I’d overdone it.
I’m new to the entrepreneur world and my initial reaction was to push the limits until I couldn’t anymore. I had the biggest month in my business yet, adding 50 more boxes to my already maxed out 100 box limit. I had a couple of friends help me the day of packing and we hustled to get all 150 boxes packed up and ready for shipment.
Then, it all blew up in my face.
The combination of Covid 19, along with national protests, and the summer heat caused 25% of my shipments to be delayed at The Cheesery. My stomach twisted in knots I’ve never felt before.
I’ve faced many obstacles, but this by far was the biggest and most costly one. Now, I’ve refunded my customers and I’m working on filing insurance claims with UPS. They don’t make it super easy, by the way, and I’m still exhausted from it.
I felt defeated. How am I going to move past this? I’m a one-woman show for the most part. I do all the admin work, all the prep, all the communication with customers, and the day I ask for help from friends is my shipping day. Behind the scenes, there is really a lot to do that takes a lot of time, and now I had a pile of papers and insurance claims to work through. So, I did the only thing I thought made sense. I decided to delay my next order and shut down shipping for the time being.
This saga will continue, but I wanted to get my story out there. What’s happening in the world today has made it very hard to be a small business start-up. It’s hard anyways and takes a very self-motivated person. Then to add in all of the unpredictability in our world today… It’s no wonder so many have had to close up shop.
I’ll give updates along the way and tell my story, but for now… I’m in a paused season…. And it feels right.
