The Worst Business Advice I Ever Gave My Wife

Years ago I gave my wife terrible business advice. And not because it didn't work, but because it did and it led to her building a business that she she didn't love. And so the the backstory here real quick is: she had a a successful Etsy business—um she was doing about 20, 25 thousand a month selling custom baby bedding for for little girls primarily—and it was really cool. Like at I mean every time I've posted pictures of it, you know, I always get somebody that's like, "Hey, would she would she do like one more?" You know, like people people fall in love with it. It's very unique. She's very creative, uh very crafty, very good at bringing kind of like a vision to to life like a like an artist. And this was just an extension of that.

So she was she was crushing it. Had a ton of five-star reviews. Uh had a a waiting list that was six months long. And we were dating at the time, but I had we had been friends for a while so I had context for the business and she had periodically asked me for advice on business. Like one of the one of the first things I said I was like, "You know what, you gotta increase prices." She ended up quadrupling prices and keeping the six-month waiting list. Like if that tells you anything. Like it was it was very in demand. Like beyond product-market fit. Like she had product she had product-market pull. Right? Like at at like people were demanding her shit.

And, you know, when she asked me about like what to where to go with it next and what to do next, you know, I gave her my advice which was: Well it's time to scale it. Right? Like you've you've got every indicator that you would normally look for to determine can this thing be scaled and by almost all accounts, you looked at it and said, "Yep. Like you've got pricing power, you've got social proof, you've got, you know, all of the like check, check, check through the list."

She initially had some like resistance to that advice. It was like, "Yeah, but I love sewing." And, you know, we talked about it and and she ultimately said, "Okay. Like you're you have a good track record in business. I guess this is the next thing that I that I should be doing—air quote 'should be doing.'" And she did it. And I I helped her with that and she hired some people and started systematizing things. And she went from spending her time doing the stuff that she really loved—like truly loved doing all day—right? Like she loved talking to people, figuring out their their tastes and kind of creating a vision for it and then, you know, building the patterns and getting all the fabrics and making that thing. And she was doing that virtually all day.

And she went from that to managing people, you know, looking after like quality control and, you know, trying to build systems and it was it was shit she didn't want to do. The advice that I gave her was biased based on my beliefs. It was based on what I believed was the way to build a business. And I believed that there's a lot of different ways to build a business, but for me, it was the wrong advice. My advice for somebody else may have been perfect, right? That may have been exactly what they wanted to to do. That may have been exactly the business that they wanted. But for her, it was the wrong advice.

And she was no longer the architect with a vision of this, you know, let's say metaphorical house that she's building—like this business—and, you know, kind of like using her creative expression and everything else in it. And she was now kind of like this subcontractor. Like building the business according to what I thought the business was. And and it wasn't intentional. Like I it wasn't like, you know, making it my vision. But she was kind of executing this vision of somebody else's vision of a business. And it wasn't very fun for her. And her gut, the initial resistance that she had was fucking spot on. Like that was... that is a huge sign that you can't ignore.

And I think, you know, looking back on it, if you've if you haven't, you're thinking, "Okay, like what do I what do I do with this? Well if you if you're in a position to hire, start thinking about how do I hire the right people? Not just the right players." In other words, how do I hire the right person that's gonna add to the dynamic and add to the culture and help recruit and raise the standard of everything and help everyone else? Like a person that comes in and you go, "Hey, like that's... that's a good addition." You start stacking those people together, you start building a team. If you're not in a position where you can hire, then, you know, think about joining a legitimate team. Like if you're if you're talking to other employers or you're talking to, you know, people that you, you know, other partners, whatever it is, then talk about that aspect of it. Not just the day-to-day. Not just the checklist. Not just the specific responsibilities. But how do you guys work well together? Like how do you guys support each other? Like what's what's the common goal? Can I talk to a couple people? Right? Like that's... and that's we... when we did interviews, we'd let people come in like, "Hey, bypass me. Talk to them. You know, talk to them about what to what to expect."

So think about that. And if you kind of apply this filter, from my experience, you're gonna end up not only putting a lot more W's on the board, um, but you'll enjoy the process as you do. Adios.

So that's my advice to to you. Take it with a grain of salt—some advice about advice. And I know some of you, like I every time I tell this story somebody's like, "Well, you know what she could have done, what she could have done, like what you guys could have done..." Listen I get it. Like I've I've... But the thing is: she didn't want to manage people. She didn't want a business. She wanted to do the thing that she loved. And she wanted to get paid well for it. She didn't want to hire other people. She didn't want to turn it into something that was that was systematized or scaled. She didn't have a big grand vision of seeing her stuff in any particular store. It was, you know, fundamentally something that she loved to do and simply wanted to be paid to do it.

And the... for those of us that on the outside looking in go "Well you could have..." I get it. It's in believe... it's fucking sometimes it's like it's almost painful like, man, so many entrepreneurs are looking for that thing. Like that very very thing to to monetize and to to grow their business around. And when you hear about somebody else having it and not wanting to do the thing that you would do to it, you go "Well that's, you know, that's the... that's not the right thing to do." And I think that's also like just another lesson in life. There are different ways to leverage that and your view of it, my view of it, is not necessarily somebody else's view of it. And that's why the world works the way that it does. But keep all of this in mind when you're asking people for for advice.

So I hope those are a few good questions to to help you filter advice to make sure you build the right thing, or the right thing for you. And I hope our experience has been in some way um informative to help you avoid some potential similar type of mistake in the future. Adios.