When you have a small business there is a constant pressure for growth. People with zero experience in business will, upon hearing you have a small business, start offering advice on how to grow. Stories of small businesses that have grown to take on more contracts and more staff are celebrated, and there are thousands of business books pushing growth strategies at you. For a while I read some of them as we found ourselves quite unexpectedly on the growth track.
After a walk on a litter-strewn beach, we started a little side business called Plastic Free Pantry. It didn’t stay a little side business for very long as other people were noticing the sheer volume of plastic pollution everywhere. With no marketing whatsoever, people found us and started to buy. The side business overtook the main business (this one), and seemingly everything else. It was hungry. We needed a bigger space so we rented a premises. The increased costs meant we needed to sell more. Selling more meant we needed more help so we hired staff which increased costs and meant we needed to sell more. We needed an even bigger premises to fit in the new people and all of the stock, and still it was hungry.
Even though our turnover had increased by a huge amount, the amount that we were able to pay ourselves was less than we had when we were just a tiny little coffee roastery because the new business ate money. Ironically we were drowning in plastic as every pallet of bulk goods ordered in to help others reduce their plastic came wrapped in metres of the stuff so we had to pay for a plastics recycling collection.
I started to hate going in to work. I had made a job for myself that I hated. It became apparent that we had two choices – hire in a manager and step back so the business could grow, or close it down. The in-between option was what we were already doing and it wasn’t working. The hungry beast either needed to be fed more or cut off. It was go big or go home. We chose go home.
It wasn’t an easy process. Our lovely little team lost their jobs. I felt like we’d let our loyal customers down. We’re still paying off the debt acquired. But closing it down was the right thing to do.
I don’t talk about closing Plastic Free Pantry often because closing down a business is seen as a failure. People offer their commiserations. But while I was glad that we had tried something new, I’m also glad that we ended it and got back to doing what we do best. Small-scale and meaningful.
Our tiny little roastery of two feels right for us. We don’t want a big business and its insatiable need to be fed. The world has enough of those hungry machines gobbling up all of the resources, unable to stop. We want a just enough business, that can give us a good enough income to live well, sustainably.