What I learned from my first business venture by David Powers

We are exploring using The Hum more often as a platform to tell stories. Real, unfiltered, no-BS, personal accounts of what is it like to start a company. This Friday, Dave shares his insight from the perspective of his alter ego, owner of Bleed True.

The following article is raw, and some parts were difficult for me to write. I’ve admitted to some things that I’ve never talked to people about — super embarrassing, very real, hopefully relatable. Reader discretion is advised.

It sounds cliché, but growing up I always dreamed of owning my own business. I loved the idea of being able to manage my own time, work on something I loved, and be the damn boss. In high school, I made it a reality.

After playing with a few ideas, my best friend, Jon, and I decided we wanted to start a clothing brand, Bleed True Clothing. It seemed pretty straightforward. We both put up less than $100 and placed an order for a design straight out of 2002.

The order came in, we built a website, and we launched. We sold 1 shirt over the course of the next 24 hours. I’m pretty sure it was to my grandma (Love you, Gram!).

This is when we knew we needed to start making moves. We decided to try to print the shirts ourselves. Then someone asked if we could print some shirts for them. We rolled with it and Bleed True Screen Printing was born.

We doubled our revenue each of the next few years, but the money wasn’t the point. It was the education. The education we obtained and lessons learned from creating a real business made our formal education seem silly. Here are the biggest lessons I learned.

Disaster Management — Admit that you are the root cause

In high school, Jon and I were always moving. I was absolutely the worst at managing my time, like most other things. I’m still terrible at managing my time.

Building a business is about thinking 2 (or 12) steps ahead — something I didn’t have a grasp on back then (still working on it). We would sit on an order for a week and with a couple of days left before it was due, I would order the supplies and make the graphics, barely making the deadline. Or not making it at all.

I recently lost a huge client because I couldn’t deliver on my promises. We delivered subpar orders, even shipping an order with a graphic missing from the sleeve. They dropped me like a hot potato.

Part of being successful is learning from your mistakes through careful reflection. Admit that you are the root cause of the issue and make damn sure that it doesn’t happen again. There will always be more clients, and you can even win clients back if you prove that you’ve learned. But you will never get them back if you try to sweep the issue under the rug. Get up and get hustling.

“Life is like going the wrong way on a moving walkway. Stand still and you go backwards. Walk and you stay put. Gotta hustle to get ahead.” — Farrelly Brothers

Money Management — Transparency and discipline are your best friends

I hate dealing with money. Ironic, huh? But I do know that money in my bank account will give me the freedom to live exactly how I want to. I want to be 111% clear that if it wasn’t for Jon, our company would never have been successful. Some things he taught me:

When you’re starting a business, it is incredibly difficult to not want to take a cut of the profit for yourself. We were broke high school kids. It was super tempting, but we waited. Looking back on it now, I wish we better documented how long it took us to take a cut of the dough. It felt like forever.

We invested all of our revenue back into the business — getting new equipment, buying improved supplies, completing research and development. It was the only way we could grow organically. But I wasn’t perfect. Once, I used the card to stay alive. I don’t remember exactly what I bought but let’s call it 4 Happy Meals, 16 iced coffees, and a yo-yo. You know, essential shit.

I didn’t discuss it with Jon, and he didn’t talk to me for a week. I almost ruined everything and I regret it to this day. A snap decision can ruin your company and relationships. I’ve learned transparency and discipline are your best friends.

When to say YES: Back yourself into a corner

It’s important to learn when to say no. There is a place for it. But being a yes man or woman will get you further than playing it safe. Bleed True taught me that if you want to shake up your life — to make moves like you’ve never made before — you need to back yourself into a corner and let your work scratch and claw you out.

Our first huge order in the shop (basement) was a set of 220 polyester shirts with 3 color graphic on the front and 1 color graphic on the back. That may as well have been written in a different language for us at the time. When we received this inquiry, we were ill-prepared to complete order. We had never printed on polyester and never printed anything over 2 colors.

We should not have said yes. But we did.

Those 2 weeks of work were stressful — a lot of messed up shirts, a couple arguments, and constant contemplation of why the hell we were doing this. But looking back at it now, I don’t think of the struggles. All I really remember is that (relatively) huge check that launched our business to the next level.

The late nights, long days, stress, setbacks, and sore hands? Those faded from memory. But you know what stuck? Backing ourselves into a corner and successfully fighting our way out. And as soon as we finished we looked for the next corner to back ourselves into.

25,915

Bleed True is still running 4½ years later. Jon has since retired, and the company has moved up to Worcester to live with me. We have a 580 sq. ft. shop just outside of the city and we’ve successfully doubled our revenue for the last 3 years.

Since that fateful day ignoring the high school economics teacher and talking with Jon, it’s been an absolutely wild ride. Every day offers a new lesson.

If you’re reading this and debating trying to make something happen for yourself, I offer you this. The average human has 25,915 days to live. 25,915 days are deposited into your time bank. Every day you are required to take out 1 day, no matter what. When that bank account dries up, you die. Game over.

How many days do you want to waste before you start working to make your dreams a reality? What’s the worst that could happen? You fail? I can think of something far worse — not making an effort in the first place.