My entrepreneur journey: An important lesson.

In 2018, I started a clothing line with one of my oldest friends from school. We both jumped in full-time, and I put in all my savings. For a while, things were good. We were doing pretty well from April 2018 to early 2020. The brand was growing, we were getting orders, and we were starting to find our groove.

Then, in March 2020, things changed. The pandemic started. Everything stopped. We were stuck, just like a lot of other businesses. We didn't make any money, but we still had a business loan to pay off.

That's when things started to fall apart.

After taking a moment to collect my thoughts, I started to investigate our finances more thoroughly. What I discovered still hurts. We were using a property owned by his family as our office and warehouse, and my partner had been sending his father large sums of money under the guise of "rent." As it happens, there was a nearly 250% increase in the rent. Furthermore, his pay was almost five times that of mine. And I didn't know. Why? I was too busy working on branding, marketing, Meta ads, graphics, maintaining the website, acquiring raw materials, and even stock management.

Besides the finances, I was managing practically every aspect of the company. My biggest error was that. The company eventually failed. However, I was transformed by the lessons I took away. I discovered the hard way how crucial it is to keep tabs on your finances. How blind trust can be very costly, particularly in the business world. And how protecting the foundation beneath all of the "visible" work is insufficient. Undoubtedly, it was a difficult chapter. However, it was also the one that taught me the most. Regardless of how much you trust the individuals involved, if you're building something, keep your eyes on the numbers. And keep asking questions.