I’m Burning It Down
I suppose this is the second part of the Business Restructure series I started here, but it’s not the second phase I thought I’d be doing. And I suppose it’s only a business restructure now in as much as I’m taking a match to the existing one, and putting something new in its place.
The idea for arson comes calmly. I have a feeling I was sat in my old bed, right before the move. I had been thinking more about restructuring, more about how to make everything within the business model of Simple & Season make sense – and then came the clarity. What makes the most sense is to burn it all down.
When this was just a feeling I hinted about it in my newsletter in the days before I moved: just as I have been giving away my furniture and donating my crockery and leaving behind the remaining scraps of an old life, so I want to leave behind the parts of the business that came from that too. To do in my work what I am in my life - let it all go and start again. If I were starting a business from scratch right now, is this the business I would make? I have not been clear on anything much for a long time, but I know this with total clarity: it certainly would not.
There is a serenity in purging yourself of things from an old life. When I moved I donated the every day humdrum things that were associated with my ex, because I didn’t want to bring those associations with me. I wanted to shed the things that would always tie me to a life and a person I was moving away from. I didn’t want my new life to be built and decorated with the things of the old.
And it makes sense that I feel the same about the business. I believe that everything I have made in the last two years is good work. I have spent so many walks ruminating, so many hours buried in creating things I think will help – and that have helped - people. But I also know that the version of me who created those things over the last two years was often unsettled and unclear, reaching blindly, sometimes desperately, for a path forward. Those are not associations I want to build the future iteration of this business out of.
As much as the structural integrity is good, it is set up in such a way that to keep it is holding me back from making this business something I can thrive in – now and in the future. Which is why it needs to go.
So, what do I mean by “burn it all down”? It’s perhaps more dramatic in my head than it will appear in practice – this will still be Simple & Season, and all the branding will stay the same (although now I’ve moved, the imagery will naturally shift over time). The burning is happening specifically in the building that holds the business model. The Kits and Story Class will be moved to a different location but everything else is going.
Really this is speeding up the inevitable. There have been little controlled burns over the last few months (like ending Grow With Soul) and I was always working towards a point where the product offering would be substantially different to what it is now. Just rather than spending my time removing each brick to keep the structure standing for longer, I’m knocking the whole thing down in one go.
I realised this week that I was waiting, and at first I didn’t know what I was waiting for. The decision that I was going to close all the products down was made weeks ago, and yet I still hadn’t made any steps towards it. I realised I was waiting for the Right Time. I was waiting because waiting seemed measured and sensible – get some things in place first, see if any more sales come in, wait until everything is ready.
Some fundamental flaws in this thinking. 1) the whole point of burning down the business model is to make space for the new things. I can’t get new things in place first, because they will be made within the context of the existing things. 2) realistically, I’m not going to make a sales push over the summer for products I already know aren’t part of the future of the business. 3) the Right Time isn’t going to arrive announced; the right time has to be made. And perhaps there’s no Right Time to set things on fire, maybe it’s just picking a day and lighting the match.
So that’s where we are. Later this month there will be a Fire Sale – a chance to get hold of my existing offerings before they go up in flames. Make sure you are on my email list to be notified of dates and flash sales. And then we’ll sweep up the ashes, and see what has room to grow.
