Focus: How Losing Team Members Made Us Sharper
One of the hardest parts of working in a startup is focus. When you’re growing a business, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that sheer effort—working longer, pushing harder—will get you there. But focus isn’t about doing more; it’s about doing the right things with the resources you have.
The last six months at MOYU have been intense. You can make all the plans and forecasts you want, but reality has a way of rewriting them. We kicked off 2024 with a clear focus: double our sales.
That “focus,” however, quickly scattered as opportunities fed our ambition. We wanted to double our retail presence, expand B2B sales into new countries while maintaining Dutch sales, and grow e-commerce—all at the same time. And then, there was the big, invisible elephant in the strategy room: We had been operating at a loss for the last two years. Meaning? We needed to pull this off with a skeleton marketing budget.
The grind mentality trap
I’m not one to shy away from an operational challenge. The only way I saw to push through was to go all in, sacrificing work-life balance. Luckily, I’m in a rare position—my wife is both my life and work partner, making the blurred lines between the two more manageable.
To tackle the challenge, we structured our small but mighty team as follows:
Sales Team (6 people)
- 1x Co-founder – managing the team and handling key accounts
- 1x Sales rep (Retailers)
- 1x Sales rep (B2B Resellers)
- 1x Sales rep (B2B Netherlands)
- 1x Sales agent (B2B France)
- 1x Sales agent (B2B Germany)
Marketing Team (3 people)
- 1x Brand Guardian – leading the marketing team and building partnerships
- 1x Designer – creating everything from the website and social media content to ads and sales decks
- 1x Marketer – managing Meta & TikTok, running an ambassador program, plus designing B2B notebook covers on the side
Operations Team (4 people)
- 1x Co-founder – overseeing supply chain, product innovation, HR, and investor relations
- 1x Tech Lead – handling e-commerce, third-party platforms, workflow automation, and moonlighting as a copywriter for the marketing team
- 1x Finance & Administration
- 1x Part-time Customer Support Agent
By all definitions, we were focused. Or so we thought.
When things fall apart, real focus kicks in
As the year progressed, we lost four key team members—our Resellers rep, Retailers rep, B2B France agent, and Customer Support agent. Each left for understandable reasons, but their absence temporarily rocked our boat.
Funny enough, sometimes setbacks are exactly what you need. While it was tough to see team members go, it forced us to focus. Instead of stretching ourselves thin compensating for the loss to keep doing everything, we had to do more with less and double down on things that actually moved the needle.
The results? A different kind of growth
- Sales only grew by 10%, far from our ambitious goal.
- Operational profit increased by 10%, just shy of breaking even.
Not exactly the business growth we set out for, but a critical shift in our financial stability nonetheless.
Key takeaways from the year
- Don’t grow your team too fast. Instead of hiring based on forecasted results, hire when your business model has proven it can sustain growth.
- Challenges can be blessings in disguise. Don't get discouraged by what initially seem like setbacks. In our case, a smaller team forced us to improve our processes and get more out of the effort we put in.
- Be strategic before outsourcing. Understand what you need before you seek external help—otherwise, you risk wasting resources. (more on this next month).
This year tested our ability to focus in ways we never expected. The reality is, true focus isn’t about doing more—it’s about doing better. At the end of the day, growth isn’t about adding more people to the team, it’s about creating clarity—clarity in goals, responsibilities, and priorities. That’s what truly allows a team to scale.
With that, we move into the next phase of our journey, taking the steps to turn a profit.
