Confessions of a Failed Entrepreneur

Summary

A young entrepreneur reflects on the failure of their children's fashion label, attributing it to a lack of market research, business acumen, and the wrong support system, despite meticulous attention to product quality.

Abstract

The author of "Confessions of a Failed Entrepreneur" shares their personal journey of launching a children's fashion label out of necessity after struggling to find employment post-university. Despite a strong start in product development, the business faltered due to a lack of understanding of the target market, an underdeveloped brand identity, and the absence of a clear business strategy. The entrepreneur's reliance on inexperience, taking on all roles single-handedly, and heeding unsolicited advice led to significant missteps. The experience underscored the importance of intuition, the gap between business theory and practice, and the inevitability of making mistakes as a new business owner. Ultimately, the label became unprofitable, prompting its closure, but the author emerged with valuable lessons and a renewed approach to entrepreneurship.

Opinions

The author believes that their initial drive to create the fashion label was based on a naive assumption that demand for children's clothes equates to automatic market success.
They acknowledge that the lack of a compelling brand story and personality was a critical oversight that hindered customer attraction and engagement.
The entrepreneur regrets relying on a university "friend" for product photography, which led to a loss of resources and a setback in their marketing efforts.
They express frustration over receiving and attempting to implement a multitude of conflicting business advice from various sources.
The author admits to ignoring their intuition about potential business pitfalls, which they recognize as a significant mistake.
They emphasize the disparity between theoretical business knowledge acquired from books and the practical challenges of running a business.
Despite the business's failure, the author values the experience as a learning opportunity and acknowledges that continual learning and adaptation are essential in entrepreneurship.

I wish I knew better

My entrepreneurial path was a necessity to become useful. After graduating university, with that everything is possible sensation. For 8 months I looked everywhere and no one was hiring me, really, no one, I applied even for jobs as a seamstress, which coming from a fashion design degree, that job is super basic; yet I didn’t even get those jobs. So, of course, patience was at a very low stage and I wanted to do something, anything, so, I had to employ myself.

I didn’t know what was I getting myself into, which I think not one entrepreneur knows that for certain. And with that numbness I started my own fashion label for children.

I’ll number what happened:

I started with the affirmation: Clothes for children will always be necessary. And that’s it. That was my reason to start a label of that segment. I never did a survey that would tell me anything about my clients; I was aware I was selling this clothes to adults but never knew who were these adults. So, from here on in all sales were destined to fail.

Because my desire to do something was a lot, I started right away. Without a story to tell, lack of brand personality, zero purpose, and, of course, no way to attract any clients.

Not everything were mistakes. I did my research about measuring, because I don’t have children of my own or nearby, I had to investigate the measurements of these tiny people and I did an amazing job 👏🏻👏🏻. When I tried the clothes on babies or toddlers the fitting was great.

I wanted to spend the least of money as possible because it wasn’t my money and the more money I asked for, the more money I had to return, so I was doing everything, and by everything I mean all tasks. Designing, patterning, creation of original textiles, printing those textiles, choosing materials, sewing, technical sheets, photographs of products, editing, creation of content on social media, so I didn’t have energy left for being a business woman. I didn’t pay attention to the return of money, taking care of my clients, getting to know them, etc.

Relying on the wrong people. I was young and unexperienced. I have never been in a situation where someone wants to take advantage of me and when I asked for help to a “friend” from university to take the product pictures, he ghosted me and never gave me my photos. Because we were recent grads and wanted to have some experience we rely on each other and made an agreement that he would take the photos for free as long as I let him use those for portafolio, and after the photoshoot where I bought all the props and came up with the theme, he just vanished and I never saw him or talked to him again.

Taking everyone’s advice. It’s funny how everyone know how to start and keep a business flowing, and the funniest part is that everyone thinks you want to hear their opinion about your problems. I took it very personal and heard every single comment and put it in practice in my process, of course each business has their own crisis and needs, so it didn’t work.

I didn’t listen to my intuition. As I kept doing the work I knew something was off, there were many blank spaces, and I knew I had to figure it out, yet I didn’t pay attention and just kept going until I had a good result.

I read a lot of books about businesses and entrepreneurship and biographies of entrepreneurs wanting to find a guide to my business, but the thing with these books is that they will tell the basic facts, the theory, but as life has taught us over and over is that theory and practice are widely different.

I wish I could tell you that I was 12 years old when I made these mistakes and blame it all to my short age, but no, I was 24 or 25, with a degree, and in some points I was studying my master degree. But after all those mistakes, the business was no longer profitable, so I closed.

I was unemployed for a while and then I got a job, paid my debts, and… started again with a fresh start, understanding what went wrong, with experience, and knowing that those mistakes were natural for someone who’s only experienced in one area and that I will continue to make mistakes because nobody teaches anybody to become an entrepreneur, there are surprises every day but it’s important to acknowledge that we will never know everything and that is ok.