​Been in business 7 years and Only just realising it’s not for me

So, I started my business as a side project about 10 years ago. I was working full time in a really boring job, and my side business (e-comm, mainly selling on amazon at the time) was paying me better for about 3 years. Then I made a decision I now regret – I went full time on the business, hired an employee, then another, and not long after that the business started going to shit. Within 2 years I was paying myself just above minimum wage. Age 34, I then met my now wife. I then made the really stupid decision of signing into a 5 year lease – which is ending in a few months. Business is now mainly selling on my own website and to hospitality customers, Amazon and other marketplaces only account for about 10% of the overally 25K per month average revenue.

I got a tax bill recently for 25k (we were able to warehouse some tax debts after covid for a couple years in my country). I got the bill and cried, as I’d been struggling to pay creditors recently anyway, and hadn’t paid myself in 2 months (nowadays, not even paying myself minimum wage). I had buried my head in the sand and had been afraid to look at how much tax I had warehoused. I’d say roughly speaking if I closed the business today I’d have about 30K in assets (mainly inventory) and about 40K debt. So, thankfully, it’s not as bad as it could be. I can hopefully sell off as much of the stock as I can before the end of my lease, and pay as much of the debt as possible before having to go through the liquidation process proper.

Part of me is glad the business is failing. I don’t have any employees anymore. I’ve just been working myself to the bone the last 2 years, and it keeps feeling like I’m turning a corner, but the incremental improvements are just never enough. I realised recently that business will go one of 4 ways if I continue

It’ll get worse, and I won’t even be able to pay myself min wage It’ll stay the same and I’ll be working my ass off and stressing for minimum wage It’ll get slightly better and I’ll be working myself to the bone for €35K per year (roughly average in my country). But will still be stressed It will improve significantly and I’ll have to hire people again, I’ll be able to pay myself a decent wage (50K plus)

The thing I’ve realised in the last 2 weeks is that NONE of the above outcomes are what I want out of life. I never wanted to run a business, I just kind of fell into it. I wouldn’t even care if I earned 150K out of the business. I can live comfortably on 40 or 50K, that’s about all I’d ever strive for. I’ve felt detached from my wife alot the last couple of years as I’ve been thinking about work at home. Since I made the decision recently to end the business, I’ve felt alot more connected to her. I’ve realised I’d likely be much happier working for 35K per year for someone else. Close my laptop on a friday and enjoy the weekend. Never have to think about tax returns again, never have to worry about someone suing me, not worry about whether next months sales will be good enough

It’s been fairly emotional for me recently as I realised I’ve been lying to myself alot the last few years, and to other people, telling them I enjoy my business – I don’t, I enjoy certain aspects of it (digital marketing, seo, web design), but I absolutely HATE others aspects – accounting, bookkeeping, customer service, sales, importing etc.. And I spend far more time on the latter nowadays. I’ve always been a fairly risk averse person, and I’ve never been a leader or management type. So even if my business was more successful, I’d be the wrong person to run it.

I realise no job is perfect, but on reflection my business has been pretty much ALL negative the last few years

Don’t enjoy it and am not passionate about it at all anymore Stresses me Pays really poorly Long hours and short holidays Unpredictable

Anyway, that’s it. I feel like I’m coming through some trauma at the moment, self-inflicted. I’ve had a therapy session recently and I’m looking forward to my next one, because I really want to do some introspection to understand how I let this business go on for so long, and why I didn’t stop a few years ago. I don’t regret starting, but I definitely regret letting it go on for 7 years, especially after it stopped paying me anything reasonable.

I’m realising I’m quite a stubborn person, which can sometimes be a good thing (and I guess many successful entrepreneurs are like that). The problem for me is that I was never really interested in running a business to begin with!

Wonder if anyone else has felt this way?