668- When it is time to close a struggling entrepreneur business

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In this episode, we shall publicly report that we will be sharing and distributing this episode and its content to both 2030podcast.com and The Struggling Biz podcast show, as well as gumpyoldbears.com.

We did have a remembrance of the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, in a somber way. Too bad that the rest of the country hardly remembers that “day of infamy.”

You can see the album art for several of these podcast shows below:

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So the key question should be: When is it time to terminate or close down your entrepreneur startup business?

And we will discuss my key startup business, Matrix Solutions Corporation, as the major case-in-point.

In general, what would be some factors or reasons or environments that would have me consider shutting down my entrepreneurial business? We can try to list them, and we can then discuss them.

Health conditions;
Business customer situations;
Entrepreneur desires to continue;
Where hobbies are fun and desirable, yet the business environment is not;
Business conditions (i.e., paperwork, taxes, documentation and other secretarial-type work);
the need to “feel free to pursue other endeavors”; or
the need to just be “retired” with no responsibilities to business or requirements of tasks due;
and one of the most likely: the need to still be involved in business, but the customer environment and the condition of the business model is not suitable or desirable to pursue; and
the cost of keeping the business operating is creating a loss every year, due to customer, product, and other reasons — and this is NOT SUSTAINABLE; and
finally review the EXIT STRATEGY and EXIT PLAN for the business in the charter or business plan for the company.

So, one may ponder what needs to be done, what needs to be planned and what needs to be executed within a given time frame to exit the business legally and for good — although you may reserve the right to begin another entrepreneurial business, should a new technology or opportunity strike your desire to pursue another venture (health and other environment conditions permitting).

So we discuss these factors in a writing method commonly called “state of the mind” or additionally, “stream-of-consciousness” styles.

Most important is the condition of my health and the effects on it due to agent orange exposure and injuries caused when I was in Vietnam during the war as a combat infantryman in the jungles, mountains and rice paddies — as well as concussions due to parachute jump landings that caused injuries when I was a paratrooper with my second tour of duty in the 82nd Airborne Division.

As I mentioned, the stream-of-consciousness method was used in the latter part of the discussion recorded. I hope it was meaningful to you.

Thank you for your attention.