Ahhhh… the fun of going back and cleaning up the wreckage left by the former partner. I am sure many Entrepreneurs can and do empathize with this one. I was listening to a podcast the other day and a very successful female entrepreneur was speaking about her former partner.

A Cautionary Tale….

See, her business had grown to be an unmanageable size for her to run on her own, or so she thought. She hired a partner for 50% of the business. In six months she was in tears every night, wondering how she’d lost all control. To recapture her authentic self, her passion, and her original mission, this CEO had to break it off with the partner and start ALL OVER AGAIN. She did, obviously, recover and kicks ass today, but I was definitely nauseous listening to her story. And I know there are many stories out there just like this one. Thank god we were still the majority owner in our company. That alone saved us.

However, that is not to say that this is easy by any means. When feeling overwhelmed and like you should trust someone, even though your gut tells you otherwise (ALWAYS listen to your gut people), business responsibilities are shared and not every facet of the business is monitored. Many aspects of our business were pigeon-holed by the ex-partner.

One Day at a Time….

Which leaves us to the past four months. Frantically getting access to major accounts which we were intentionally left out of (F-ing double authentication!) Re-establishing relationships that had soured. Going back through all the old emails and locating betrayal or just plain sabotage then mending it. Basically starting almost all over again. Thankfully we have an amazing COO who handles most of the responsibilities that the former partner claimed to have performed.

We find ourselves here, re-surfacing from the rubble and hanging onto a sliver of strength to begin to rebuild and rebrand. Finally, most of the legal bullshit (at least for now), and time wasted having to search through thousands of emails and recover accounts is behind us.

Forward March…

I find myself today, a rainy thunderstorm-y day, on the couch reading as much as I can about marketing, writing copy, and changing our website, Faire site, and all-over brand. Finally moving forward. And while I am scared shitless, like most of us entrepreneur wives are, I am hopeful and excited. Change is imminent.

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