I’m completely burned out, depressed and still putting in 10 or 12 hours daily work into my business, but I feel like I’m digging a hole most days!!

I will not advertise for obvious reasons, but would love some advice.

Me and my business partner have a brand, mostly sneakers, high end, made in Europe. We are from Europe, a small country. We’ve got 2 physical locations and a Shopify website! Online sales are 95% exports, USA, UK, Germany and France leading… Gross margins are healthy, ranging from 65 to 70% depending on the market.

We did 1.2M EUR revenue last year.. growing about 15% again this year… And YET, this is not a profitable company. We’ve got 5 people in the office and 1 CS and 4 staff for stores. We spend on ads, have a great product and ship quite premium UPS and DHL across the world. 5k+ product reviews, 4.6 on trustpilot, people love and praise the service and the product. We’ve even been featured on a highend YouTube reviewer who was genuinely impressed by our quality and fair price point compared to others.

Logistics are a main issue.. they take up like 25%+ of our revenue online! We could do a 3PL in the US, but we need more volume, since shoes need refurbishment after being tried on and we ship some accessories that may need repackaging etc.

We had an investor in the past.. they put like 450k, they don’t want to keep investing for now, and the business is cash heavy with working capital, all the sizing, complex production etc, but we can handle that, as we’ve learned the ropes and have great manufacturers…

I’ve spent ALL my savings, we have some debt, I borrowed money from family… AND I’m at the end of the road and energy, my life is hostage to this company, but if I stop now, I won’t be able to repay all the debt, especially with personal guaranteed credit from banks, and I don’t want to loose my house. I’m stuck, I’m scared.

We need to grow to around 1.8M€ revenue to be profitable.. so it is hard to give up, when we’ve done most of the work now. We have a rockstar team of honest, faithful, hard working and smart people. I don’t want to fail them either. I wish I could give them equity or a raise, because they deserve it, but not with this type of unhealthy balance sheet and no cash.

I was recently a father for the first time.. that’s what’s keeping breathing, barely. Best feeling in the world, but I feel like a failure in everything else!!! I’m ashamed, I’m sad, I’m tired.

Most days, getting out of bed is like climbing a mountain, but I do it, I do sports 3 or 4x a week, I keep working endless hours even after putting my daughter to bed, until 3am if needed. I keep my social life as much as possible and I’m still showing up for family and friends… But I’m on anti depressants and anxiety meds and life still sucks!!

Life is unfair. I work my ass off, day in, day out, I NEVER in 20 years working stepped on anyone’s toes, I was educated to be polite, honest, fair and appreciative of how lucky I had it. And I am…

But I’m done, I feel broken.

Sorry for the enormous rant, any advice would be highly appreciated!