I nearly missed it.
It was 9pm on September 11 once I realized—A Higher Lemonade Stand’s birthday.
12 years outdated.
September eleventh is definitely the anniversary of many main occasions in my life, each good and dangerous.
It was on September eleventh, 2011, that I used to be laid off from my first profession out of faculty.
The Layoffs
I used to be out in Vancouver, Canada, and for five years, I had been working for a neighborhood chain of leisure complexes (Much like Dave & Busters) and golf & nation golf equipment.
I made my method up the chain fairly shortly, managing the advertising and operations for a number of places with just a few hundred staff.
Nevertheless, within the 5 years I used to be there, we confronted growing monetary pressures. The proprietor was a reclusive wealthy man who was shopping for up wealthy man issues (Nation Golf equipment) and was overextending himself.
By 2010, the monetary stress of his purchases grew to become an excessive amount of. The proprietor tasked the Vice President of the corporate with chopping prices considerably, and it was determined that this value chopping would principally come from layoffs.
The VP tapped me to help within the layoffs.
Thoughts you, I used to be extremely younger presently and had no thought what I used to be actually doing, however the VP was additionally a mentor to me, and this was his method of throwing me into the fireplace and giving me a real-life enterprise expertise I’d probably by no means usually get to expertise.
And so it started—a slaughterfest.
We started shedding dozens of staff, beginning with junior positions and shortly escalating to all senior departments – administration, marriage ceremony occasion coordinators, operations, and advertising.
I had no say in who was getting lower, however right here I used to be, as a 25-year-old child, telling folks twice my age they had been being laid off.
The dread and guilt consumed me with each dialog.
The method wasn’t fast both. Because the proprietor confronted an increasing number of monetary stress, the cuts continued over months.
Strolling the grounds, you questioned what everybody was fascinated about you. After they talked to you, had been they simply appearing additional good as a result of they had been afraid for his or her job?
Spoiler alert, they had been.
At one level, each the VP and myself questioned if we should always even eat at our personal restaurant amenities anymore for worry of being poisoned.
As we slowly got here to the top of all of the cuts we might make with out shutting down the companies utterly, I began to really feel uneasy and principally defeated from the expertise. We had been an organization with a barebones workers, nervous staff, a diminished model & product, and continued monetary pressures.
The Turning Level
Then I obtained the textual content from the VP that I immediately knew was going to alter my life: “Richard, can we meet tomorrow?”
It was my flip.
The following day, September 11, 2011, I met with the VP to get a style of the exact same drugs I had helped dish out to over 100 others within the months prior.
Whereas I can’t say I used to be completely happy, it felt like a definitive finish to a really fascinating chapter in my life.
A New Path
Within the weeks after being laid off, I bought The 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss, which might set off the following chapter in my life.
I learn the ebook cowl to cowl in just a few nights and bear in mind considering with such readability that this was my future.
I wished to construct my very own enterprise, automate it, and be answerable for my very own future.
Impressed by the ebook, I spent the following 12 months constructing small ecommerce companies — studying how to decide on profitable merchandise, negotiating with suppliers in China, importing merchandise into Canada, organising a web based retailer, and on-line advertising.
The Start of A Higher Lemonade Stand
Mockingly, it was precisely a 12 months later, on September eleventh, 2012, that I registered abetterlemonadestand.com—principally as an area to distill my ideas, concepts, and experiences in ecommerce.
It’s wild that the one resolution to begin writing about my ideas and experiences would change the course of the remainder of my life.
Solely a 12 months and a half after I began running a blog, A Higher Lemonade Stand caught the eye of Shopify, and I joined the Progress staff, serving to them develop the Shopify weblog from 200k to 2 million guests throughout my tenure and experiencing the as soon as in a lifetime alternative of IPO’ing (is {that a} time period?).
As a lot as I cherished Shopify, the product, and the folks I labored with, I left Shopify only a 12 months and a half later to pursue entrepreneurship full time and to proceed charting my very own path.
From Defeat to Dedication
September eleventh has at all times been a symbolic day for me—a day of each nice losses and even better beginnings. From shedding my job and questioning my objective to launching A Higher Lemonade Stand and discovering my ardour once more, every September eleventh has nudged me nearer to who I’m meant to be.
It’s a reminder that success doesn’t come with out setbacks. In truth, these setbacks are what give the highs their that means.
For me, this was by no means nearly constructing companies—it’s about constructing myself via the companies I create, the dangers I take, and the teachings I be taught alongside the way in which.
Over the previous decade, I’ve weathered storms that examined my resilience and skilled highs I by no means imagined. However the one fixed via all of it? My dedication to progress. Whether or not I’m serving to somebody launch their first product, navigating new digital landscapes, or creating an area the place fellow entrepreneurs can thrive, I’ve at all times been pushed by a need to create one thing greater than myself.
And that’s why, even in any case this time, I’m nonetheless right here. I’m nonetheless creating. I’m nonetheless studying. And I’m nonetheless exhibiting up for that subsequent chapter 12 years later.
