LinkedIn loves to say success is all about adaptability. But what if some storms aren’t meant to be weathered?
Just pivot, push through, find a way...
Sure! But sometimes, market conditions aren’t just bad. They’re impossible. Timing matters. Resources matter. No amount of resilience will turn winter into summer.
In 2013, when my co-founder Amin Rafinejad and I decided to shut down our company in Paris/Beijing after generating a million in revenue in just 3 years since launch, people were puzzled.
To them, we had a growing business. To them, we were successful. But they couldn’t see what we saw. Each project was different. We weren’t building a portfolio. We were just busy. We knew it, but…
Shutting down felt like admitting defeat. No one wants to be seen as a loser. That fear keeps founders pushing forward even when they know they are heading straight into a wall. It's easier to ignore the signs and pretend things are fine than to make a tough call before it's too late.
However, shutting down unlocked something. It made me realize that everything is possible (Still, this is a LinkedIn post, so let's be positive). For both Amin and me, it opened up new (bigger) opportunities.
That surrender, as painful as it was, turned out to be one of the few truly strong business decisions I have ever made. The only other one that comes close was leaving my CTO role ten years later.11 Why I walked away from a CTO role
Was it the right call? I will never know. Einmal ist keinmal.
But
Waiting to hit the wall just to prove you can take the hit is not resilience.
It is denial.