The 7-Year Collapse of an SBA Acquisition

And after you've made this decision and you're really going through the worst case scenario at this point, how are things at home?

Great. Like, I had once, I had come to the conclusion that the business was going to shut down in a way. Like, the weight had lifted off my shoulders in that last week. I told everybody, like I told everybody on that Wednesday that we were shutting down.

We ended February having booked less than $11,000 worth of work, having only a few years before been booking four or five hundred thousand dollars in a month. So it was quiet. It was super, super quiet on the shop floor, and they were just waiting. So I brought everybody into the lobby.

I had to pull out an office chair and sit down because I thought I was going to pass out. But I told everybody and I left the room getting a. A handshake or a hug from everybody in the business.

And I mean, that was it. So that was the end of the week. Coincidentally, I had a long weekend planned with my wife.

I got super sick, and she said it's from a change in cortisol in my body. I don't know. She's in the medical field, so she understands more about that than me. And then it was just relief after that.

It was relief punctuated by, you know, proceedings, like issues with my customers, like, when are we going to get this stuff? And legal issues and threats and things like that. But very broadly, it was relief followed by grief.

And at what, exactly? There's a sense of loss here that's different than, say, personal failure.

Or is it.

Is that one of the same?

Well, it was important for me to go down swinging. And I felt like I had. I felt like I had done the best I could for the employees and customers and my investors and all of that, because it was.