Why my small business failed...
On being humbled, letting go, and giving things time.
I shut down my business after five years.
Earlier this year, I ran into some frustrating and humbling setbacks with my business, ReesaBoBeesa. And ultimately had to close down our workspace, let go of my amazing team and take all of the products we sold there that weren’t print-on-demand offline. Which was pretty devastating. Especially letting go of the ReesaBoBeesa team, and during such a hard year for most folks at that.
There was and still is a lot of guilt there. Guilt that I kept forging ahead, while seeing the weak points of the business. Guilt that I failed people who made the shop what it was. And also just like a medley of guilt and shame that I have carried under the surface of everything I’ve done in the past 8 or so years…that I actually have no idea what I’m doing and sometime, somewhere, someone will find out and they’ll go, “ha!” “I got ya!”. And idk what would happen after that, but whatever it was would be absolutely catastrophic and confirmation that I am actually a very bad person who is very bad at things and actually nothing was ever going well. And why would I think I could do this??
That didn’t actually happen. A lot of other shoes did, in fact, drop. Like, turns out actually that not filing your taxes for two years because your business really took off during covid when nothing seemed real and your then tax advisor didn’t even seem to understand what “e-comm” was and you didn’t want to go to jail for committing fraud cause you nearly failed math studies reeeeeaaaaally comes back to bite ya in the butt when you finally do file. It’s ‘spensiiivvee. And, hey, relying on other businesses to make stuff to the standard they always have can also bite ya in the butt. Hard. For months and months and months. And you may not recoup the money you spent on orders that never come in as they should. (I’m still in a never ending email loop of dread with this jewelry manufacturer. Maybe some day I’ll have the energy to get into it again. But probably not.). Oh, and landlords in LA are crooks. Who would have ever suspected THAT?
You can’t build anything solid on shaky ground.
When I broke down what caused my business to crumble the reality was that I had set up far too high of stakes for it. I didn’t have room for slow months or mistakes. But what was working was our sales! And my designs! And organic marketing for which I have never paid one single dime!
As of now that number is around 14,000 orders placed in my online shop since 2019. Many other comparable businesses have made many, many more sales and make much more money every year than mine did (does). And I know that because they insist on posting about it- I’ll spare you that part. But I am incredibly proud of ReesaBoBeesa’s sales. It’s like a miracle to me.
I just couldn’t keep enough high sell-through inventory on the shelves, I was paying too much to store that inventory, and I didn’t have any contingency plans. Also maybe I wasn’t ready to hire people to work at ReesaBoBeesa since those fundamentals weren’t solid.
Realizing these fundamental failures was a big blow and a huge reality check. And while it was painful, I have grown to love and appreciate a reality check. Because you can’t build anything solid on shaky ground. And the message I’m taking away from this year and this reality check is: babe, you need a cushion. Let your growth be slow and non-linear. Your dreams and ideas will still be there when you’re ready to take them on without over-extending yourself, your time, your budget and your nerves. You don’t actually have to be everything all at the time. Actually, you can’t.
I took my forced time away to re-evaluate, explore, rest and apply for a bunch of jobs I never heard back from. Swim in alpine lakes and oceans. Start making art with paint on paper again. Form a character named Clarice (Reese for short) and start writing little episodes with accompanying illustrations about her life. Make a Substack account. Realize for right now I have no choice but to keep pursuing my dreams (ugh). Find a new way to manage inventory and shipping orders for my physical designs. Get it set up. Come to a new appreciation of how much I’ve actually learned in the years of throwing myself head first into the gauntlet that is running a small business.
What did I learn from failing?
Maybe calling this a failure is a little dramatic. But at the end of the day, ReesaBoBeesa had become insolvent. And in many ways it still is 😂
I still had inventory, and jewelry boxes I’ve designed, and packing materials and a whole storage unit full of shelves and furniture and very specific little machines and tape and all manner of debris from running an art e-comm business all on your own with on the ground part time helpers. I brought my shop is back in full(ish) swing as of November 6th. Absolutely diabolical timing, I know. But my birthday was November 8th and I wanted to do it before then…and, well, gifting season is upon us. Ha!
As I mentioned above, bringing it back felt like the only option. I don’t have a fallback job, there is no freelance for a body positive illustrator out there that I’m personally aware of right now. And what’s more, I really, really love ReesaBoBeesa. I love designing beautiful things and figuring out how to get them made and how to package them. I love making dumb videos about those things in my room. I love that people buy my designs!
I’ve been running this business a few years now and despite the extreme bumps of 2024, it’s what has kept me and my cats and dog in sweaters. It’s what I know, it’s what I’m good at. And I am good at, and it means something, and the other shoe dropping actually confirmed that thank-you-very-much.
All told, I only really took four months “off”. But I have never done anything like that in my life before. I have never walked away from something but still left the door open…
And with that door still open, I was able to see things more clearly. I consulted with my other smart friends who are in similar fields. I saw things a bit more objectively. And I realized that doing every single thing myself was actually running a business on extra super duper fantastic hard mode. And did you know that a lot of other creative people who have their own brands or shops don’t do every single thing themselves?? A lot of them outsource. Quite a few of them actually have like a person behind the scenes who approaches them to start a brand and says, “hey, you are the face of this company. You will have the big picture design ideas and you’ll be a big part of executing them but…please for the love of god don’t touch the money or the books! You’re an artist, not a CFO!” - lmao can you imagine?!?
And while I’m still waiting for a nice CFO with great morals to walk up to me and whisper in my ear about taking away the financial and other logistic nightmare portions of running this business, I did find a great warehouse to help me with fulfillment and inventory management. One I can visit whenever I want. And with that sorted, I can do the rest of my business out of my house. This saves me soo much money. And allows me to be a little bit slower and more considered with my design calendar.
I am creating all of the designs for ReesaBoBeesa, assembling jewelry, packaging my items, photographing them, shooting video and whatever else it is I do all day to keep this shop running from my home office. I am also in charge of customer service. And completely alone in this room most of the time. 🙃
Is art just content now?
This may seem like a non sequitur. But another thing I found myself consumed by on my little failure hiatus was: am I okay with constantly making more stuff? If I’m not constantly making stuff to sell, what would that free me up for? And finally, how the f*ck would I finance that time to dilly dally? Can I afford to be an “artist”?
When you’ve become so used to giving away your art for free online, it’s kinda awkward to ask people to pay ya to see it. BUT HERE’S THE THING. We live in a landscape where art, music, ideas, poetry, style inspo, interior decorating, crafting etc (anything creative and human expression) has been transmuted into content instead of being both the medium and the message all tied into one. You know? Like, art and creativity in all forms is marketing now. And you need to have something to market. Or you won’t make money off your art. Only the people who make the phones and the apps will. And the people who are making robots and training them on your art will. And uhhh…I don’t like that.
For me, myself, I’ve been buying less and less stuff. This year, a lot of that is for financial reasons. But I also think I am becoming radicalized 😈 by merit of just trying to get by in a capitalist hellscape that does not care about anybody? Some days I just sit and ponder if my morals even align with designing and creating new objects to sell at all.
I think it’s important to be able to question these things. That’s how we get closer and closer to being the person we want to be and making the impact we want to make. For now, I am so grateful to have my shop back up and running. I have a new found understanding of how dope it is that I have always valued size-inclusivity and designing things with the intention of spreading self-love. And not in an oppressively positive way at that. Cause that’s not real. Like ReesaBoBeesa.com is really cool. It’s full of the kind of cool shit I needed to see in my teens and twenties!
AND I want to keep improving upon it, and find ways to keep creating that feel good. I want to let my shop and my career in general be completely art-led. And as an actual one-woman operation, there’s only so much I can and should manage at any given time. And that is why I, Reesa of ReesaBoBeesa, am proudly asking for just $7 a month for you to look at my words and pictures. Instead of just the free ones on Instagram or my portfolio 🤓 With your support, I plan to carve out more space for longer form projects, to dive deeper into my ideas and create things that I may not otherwise have the space for in this dog-eat-dog-rat-race-money-money-money-world. I want to share this journey with you and get vulnerable and messy. And honestly I just don’t feel safe doing that on Instagram or TikTok or anywhere else super public these days.
Thank you for supporting my work here so far. I’ve learned a lot about myself and my art practice this year, and this corner of the internet represents a new era of my career. One I am building consciously. Considering, for the first time really, how I want my output and work habits to fit into a full and sustainable way of life for myself. I want to morph this business and my career into something that is again about curiosity, and trying new things, and diving in deep. Not only for my own sanity and well-being, but because I think I can create more conscientious impact with my work this way.
Cheers to all our failures!
xoxo
Reesa
And a word of warning, be careful what you wish for. Cause you just might get it! 😭
If you’re new here, omg welcome! There’s five episodes of my bi-weekly web comic about Clarice and Tabitha posted for your viewing pleasure.
Thank you 💜 sending you some virtual *hugs* & lots of appreciation for the opportunity to enjoy your art & words in a safe space 😻