Until your company reaches around a million dollars in sales per year, you could go under almost any day. 

I mean, of course, every business is different. You’re not likely going to need a million dollars to run a naturopathy office or a handmade furniture studio for the long haul. 

But the premise is the same for all businesses: you have to reach for a minimum viable community that will keep your business going. You need enough money coming in the door every day that you’ll be able to pay your bills, employ your team, and invest in honing your business ideas, products, and services. 

When we first started the business, I used to think, almost daily: “Are we going to make it tomorrow? Are we going to make it next week?” 

The business was growing, but were we actually creating success? There were a million hard times, hard decisions, way before there was a million dollars. There were so many times when, as an entrepreneur, I felt frustrated and wanted to give up, or the obstacle in front of us seemed so insurmountable that it would destroy us, or that we’d have to die trying. And then I would panic: If we didn’t have this business, where would I get my hemp foods from personally? 

It was the personal stories that kept me going when I felt overwhelmed. The testimonials started coming during the first month already, and we didn’t even have to ask for them. Senior citizens were saying they had started taking hemp oil or eating Hemp Hearts, our fastest-growing product, and the arthritis in their wrists was disappearing. They were feeling better than they had in years. So much anecdotal evidence was coming in, and whether or not these health results were directly tied to Hemp Hearts, that just fired me up.