The Day I Nearly Quit (And Why I Didn’t)

There’s one day in my founder journey that still makes my stomach drop when I think about it.

It was the day £90,000 worth of stock went missing.

Not delayed.
Not mislabelled.
Not sitting in a corner of a warehouse somewhere.

Gone.

And here’s the worst part — the insurance I had only covered me per tonne.
Which meant… £2,000 back.

Ninety thousand pounds of product.
Two thousand pounds of insurance.
An £88,000 hole that would have absolutely destroyed us.

And I had to deal with it while holding a baby… and with my three-year-old in tow.

I spent that entire day going between freight companies and logistics partners, children strapped to me, demanding answers.

Everyone shrugged.
Everyone passed me on.
Everyone acted as if £90,000 worth of someone else's livelihood disappearing was “one of those things”.

I was exhausted.
I was scared.
And honestly, for the first time ever, I thought:

“I don’t think I can do this anymore.”
“Maybe this is the sign to quit.”

Because when you’re bootstrapping, there isn’t a safety net.
There’s no corporate finance team.
There’s no investor to bail you out.
If something goes wrong — it’s you who absorbs the blow.

I got home that night absolutely empty.
No fight left.
No plan.
Just panic.

I remember thinking:
“If this stock doesn’t turn up, this is it. We’re done.”

It wasn’t even dramatic.
It was quiet.
That kind of quiet that feels like defeat.

The next morning…

It turned up.
Miraculously.
No explanation.
No apology.
Just a phone call saying, “We found it.”

I could’ve cried.
In fact, I think I did.

Not because everything was “fixed”, but because that moment taught me something I’ve carried ever since:
Founders don’t quit because things get hard.
They quit because they get relentless.
And you need one tiny win to pull you back.

That was my tiny win.

That day taught me three things I still share with other founders:

1. You’re far stronger than you think.
When you’re fighting for your business with a toddler on one hip and a baby on the other — you learn what you’re made of.

2. Most of the fires you panic about don’t kill you.
They feel enormous.
They feel final.
But founders survive more than they think.

3. One good thing can reset your entire trajectory.
The stock turning up didn’t solve everything.
But it unlocked enough hope and momentum for me to keep going.

And the business ended up growing far beyond what I could see in that moment.

Here’s what I’ll tell you:

You don’t need everything to get better.
You just need one thing to not go wrong.

One sign.
One win.
One piece of good luck.
One nudge (pun slightly intended).

Momentum comes back faster than you think.

And if you’re reading this while questioning whether to keep going — you’re not alone. Every founder has their “quit day”. Mine came with £90K missing and two kids strapped to me.

I didn’t quit.
And I'm really glad I didn’t.