In 2021, I started to write an article on LinkedIn. It was called “To Let a Good Thing Die - Closing down a company.”
I was in the middle of closing down my brick-and-mortar store, a board gaming business. This was emotionally difficult for me because it felt like admitting defeat. I was no stranger to failed ventures, but this one hit me differently. I almost burned out on something that was supposed to give me joy.
I stumbled upon some things in the process that might be valuable to others.
Let’s look at how it came to be, what led almost to its (and my) demise, and how it came to a good ending by writing a letter I wrote in tears as a last-ditch effort to my friends.
The origin
I never had big ambitions with this business, and it was supposed to be fun. My passion project. I love board games, and I love giving people the space to have a great time.
So, in 2015, it was founded. First, I was on Shopify in a basement room, and after reaching a five-figure revenue after three months, I suddenly thought that this thing had legs to be an actual brick & mortar store with a café.
I started to look at store locations close to the train station and found one. I suddenly was the owner of a two-story retail location, running an online business, and had absolutely zero clue what running a board game café really meant.
I learned about loss leaders, how to calculate margins, and how to deal with moving physical products from bigger distributors over customs (and I hated every minute of it). How to run a café and shake up the scene a bit.
Without going too much into the details, I learned a lot. Retail is tough. Very tough. But it was about something I loved. Boardgames.
And the business persisted and generated a small basis to live on for the first years. (A far cry from a tech salary).
I always knew that this wouldn’t be my full-time job, so when I felt the business was stable enough, I hired two people to run the majority of the day-to-day and the community so I could go back to my main craft.
And I made my first critical mistake.
The slow descent into anxiety
I would consider myself to be experienced when it comes to running businesses, but looking back, I chose to ignore some key lessons I should have known. The first one was, instead of hiring people who help me out, I should have gotten a Co-Founder who takes over the part of the business that frustrates me the most:
Dealing with Import, Inventory, and Distributors.
I didn’t even look for someone, I couldn't imagine that anyone would enjoy this part of the business so I told myself “It’s right, I can do this myself”
I didn’t set myself up to really give control of the business. Instead, I outsourced the things that I enjoyed the most.
It did free up some time, of course, because I didn’t have to be there every evening for the gaming nights. I didn’t have to advise customers on what games to buy. I looked at it as a resource and time-trading decision. It wasn’t. It was more about what’s fun and what’s not.
I think it was a mixture of me thinking, “I’m so experienced, I understand this,” that I didn’t really listen or ask for help. Anyone who ever ran a retail business would have told me exactly how to fix it. But because retail was running on such “low” numbers, I was hesitant to even ask for help. I was arrogant.
Covid and the success that ruined everything
Covid hit. The business went from one day of being busy four times a week to zero inside the café, with no more walk-in customers. Lockdown.
While my in-store revenue dropped to zero, and no more laughter was heard in the walls of the venue, online revenue exploded. 200% increase in the first month.
People have started to order their games online, putting everything under strain. There were no conversations with people about what they wanted to play and what I would recommend. Just shipping. Every day. Shipping, labeling. Putting it into the trunk of the car.
The volume was so big that I received a special card from the post office to unload the volume on their B2B volume ramp.
The additional revenue covered almost the overall loss from the in-store business. And I started to resent the business.
I was sick of walking into it and dealing with orders… making mistakes. Being so alone in there and just staring at board games that no one was playing.
I was enjoying my main job at Smallpdf so much at the time, which felt important and fulfilling, but every evening I went home from there, I had to stop at the shop and catch up on the massive order backlog.
I started to get annoyed at order confirmations on my phone. I was done.
What am I doing here?
The (almost) crash
The effects of Covid slowly pulled back, but my resentment stayed. I burnt out on my passion. The one thing that held me back from closing the business was two things:
The community around it was really loving it, and I loved them. I was also proud of my stellar ratings at Google. How could I just leave them in the dust?
I could not imagine that anyone would want to buy a business like this. So it was either closed down or I kept it running myself. I also didn’t know where you would “advertise” such a hyper-local business to find a buyer. Board game cafés are not exactly numerous in Switzerland.
The Email
In 2021 I wrote an email to some of my trusted patrons and friends who helped me from time to time to run the business with a plea for help.
I’m sharing it here as a transparent insight in what goes on in a founders head sometimes:
(Some names and details have been omitted but this was the original sent back then)
Dear Friends,
You’ve been invited to give input on an important topic. The future of our business.
It has become a big emotional liability for me, and I’ve tried to find a way in the past couple of months to find a model that does not involve me this much and gives me so much headache all the time.
My career doesn't line up with the commitment it means for me as a person anymore and the quality of the service I (me personally, F and R are always doing a great job <3 ) provide has dropped considerably as a result:
I struggle to handle physical order handling from the online shop in time
Customer complaints are rising slightly (this one hurts me the most)
Handling distributor restocks has become very complicated with Corona and custom orders due to increased complexity at customers and DPD being so unreliable
Book keeping is time consuming with imports and and and (we have a trustee but still…)
I do not enjoy setting foot into the store anymore because most of the time i’m handling orders from anonymous people and trying to extinguish fires that I caused myself
Corona hurt us bad by shifting the business revenue to where its not fun
I don’t want to write to you a multi page essay on what stresses me out but I see absolutely no other way than to stop all distributor orders and slowly stop the online and retail part of the business because as you can see above most stress points are coming from it.
The entries and consumptions in the store do not nearly cover the running cost of such a business and by stopping the online store the business is not profitable to pay reasonable salaries.
As you can imagine that money has to come from somewhere, it’s from my own pocket and as much as I love the community and what we have built together this cost is too much for me to bear.
I’m happy to share more detailed numbers if we come up with a great plan.
I have spent the last 2 months trying to find a business model that sustains the company without as much of the above stress points but it’s insanely difficult. Every time I look at the numbers I only see money in things I don’t enjoy.
I do not want to give up yet but I’m also not willing to cover this sinkhole anymore with my personal wallet just for keeping an idea alive. It’s either an emotional or monetary black hole.
If any of you have an idea, would like to give their input and ideas i’m willing to listen.
Happy to hear any input on the topic
The followup
We had some good conversations following the letter but no solution was found. I had no more energy at this point to run this even with a Co-Founder.
The people around me were all not experienced in running a retail business themselves, and I was probably just looking for permission to say goodbye.
The patrons all said the same thing. “We love this thing, but you have to look out for yourself.” Cool. This helped me to overcome the guilt.
I started to get ready to close it down and write about it on LinkedIn as a form of therapy:
Starting the proceedings of closing down a business is time-consuming and annoying, to say the least. I started to mention to some people what I’m about to do. Liquidating all the assets and all this fun stuff.
While I slowly started doing that I got a call from an interested buyer. He would take the entire thing as is almost immediately. It was a perfect fit for them and me.
I got lucky. I was able to hand off everything in the business, the rental contract, and most importantly, the community was allowed to live on and still does today.
I got out. The LinkedIn Article was never published.
And today, when I was cleaning out some documents on my Google Drive, I found the above letter that I sent to my patrons.
The learnings
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