my business failures and lessons learned

no one talks about failures in life or businesses. and success is always measured by money. how sad.

I have failed in life and businesses many a times. and have learnt to embrace it and move on. incurred so many losses in the way, but that is life. you cannot hold on to money tightly. if it is meant to leave you, it will however hard you try to hold it.

similarly if it has to come, It will come in different ways, again if it is meant to.

for the past 15 years, I am into women entrepreneurship development and I have conducted many training interventions for women. I have been a resource person for the Central Govt of India delivering training sessions on Technical writing, jewellery making. And many private programs in corporates.

may women have been placed in companies, started their own businesses and many have said that there was a change in their thinking.

I don’t want to take credit, especially at this point of life where nothing matters.

When we moved to the UK, I learned jewellery making there, not fashion jewellery but making silver jewellery. I had done a course in Bombay too. So with all this knowledge, I applied for a training post in a company that was run by a Trust, and I was given funds to do training program for women for jewellery making.

The satisfaction of teaching is different.

then when I launched my jewellery business in the UK, I realised I made a wrong step. because jewellery was extremely personal and most of them had not pierced their ears. And I was doing earrings. what a colossal mistake…

I attended so many workshops on branding, marketing, import export training programs conducted by the UK Government, met a lot of mentors, nothing helped.

but I really need to give credit to the UK Government for supporting so much. they do everything that is possible, that too in a professional way.

but when your product sucks even God can’t help you. well my product was not bad, it was the wrong market and a bad fit.

I tried and tried for a year, spent so much money that too in pounds and gave up.

below : teaching jewellery making in silver

after a year, thought will get into cosmetic business. I already was using my handmade soaps and washing powder at home. so when paid a hefty sum and got into a private training, realised that it was not for me. my god, so many chemicals and their names just made me faint.

I felt so much chemicals on my skin and my customers, not good. and I was already drifting to sustainability.

so stopped the course midway. no one even called. all they need is money.

and thought since I was doing soaps will just do that.

n the UK, you cannot try businesses just like that like here, without a formal registration of a company, bank accounts and all the legal things. you need insurance for the business too which is mandatory and especially for skin care it is very important.

you have to spend money like 20000 rs for each soap formula.. even If you change a little like adding a different oil, you need to get one more assessment.

by the time, I did all this, so much of money was drained and then registered for website and built it on my own.

had paid a model to do a photoshoot for my soaps.

all this done and we launched and was starting to market, when COVID struck.

it was such a shock and two consecutive business failing to take off was too much for us.

but during covid, being alive was more important than all these.

luckily some instinct just before the covid. usually we buy 2 kgs or 3 kgs of rice, that time we had bought 10 kgs of rice and there was a lot of vadagams, pickles, dried legumes, dhalls at home which came in use for the next 4 months.

till we left to India for good.

I still think, that there were so many lessons learned:

you need to bounce back after a failure

it is ok to fail and close business

you should never give up

it taught me how sustainability is key, because in those days, my grandmother and the ladies in the house stocked up provisions and groceries for the entire year.

and covid taught that health is more important than anything in life.

now four years into agro products, sustainable farming, the revenue is not even 1/10 of what I earned in my work in the UK, but my satifaction and quality of life has improved. for me now, sustainability and health have become my primary goals.

we are still into so much R&D, we are learning and we are teaching others too.

what goes up has to come down. the life cycle