The Business You Built Might Not Be the Business You're Supposed to Keep

A confession (and a box of 4,000 bricks)

I have a confession to make: I have an extensive LEGO collection.

Not my kids. Me.

Hand me a giant box with 4,000 pieces, 37 numbered bags, and an instruction book three inches thick, and I am perfectly happy. Recently I realized that the reason I love LEGO is probably the same reason I became an entrepreneur.

I love a project.

I like having something I'm working on, something I'm figuring out, something I'm building. And the minute I finish one, my brain immediately asks, "Okay… what's next?"

That's great when you're building LEGO. It's a little more dangerous when you own a business, because I approach my business exactly the same way. There's always another project: a new product, a new piece of equipment, a new service, a new system, a new sales channel, a new idea.

And right now, because apparently I've run out of reasonably sized projects, I'm exploring whether to build an entirely new building.

That has me thinking hard about what I'm actually building. Not the building. The business.

Lesson 1: Sometimes you have to take it apart

For years, I thought growing a business meant adding pieces to the thing I'd already built. More customers. More equipment. More employees. More products. More revenue. Another brick, another brick, another brick.

But eventually you reach a point where another brick doesn't make the build any better.

Sometimes you need to take part of it apart.

That's the interesting thing about LEGO. When you realize you've made a mistake, you don't stare at it and say, "Well, I spent two hours on this section, so I guess we're keeping it." You take it apart. Sometimes you back up two steps. Sometimes twenty. Sometimes you discover that the mistake you made on page 37 is the reason nothing fits on page 186.

Which, now that I think about it, is a pretty accurate description of owning a small business.

Yet we're far more willing to take apart a LEGO set than a business. We get attached to what we've built, and we say things like:

•         "But we've always done it this way."

•         "But I spent a lot of money on that."

•         "But we worked really hard to build this."

•         And the one I've certainly been guilty of: "But I know how to do this."

Those feel like reasons to keep something. Really, they're just evidence that it was part of the build that got us here. They don't mean it belongs in the build that takes us where we're going.

That's one of the biggest things I'm learning right now: the business I built might not be the business I'm supposed to keep.

Built one brick at a time

Badger Track Customs didn't start with a beautiful 10-year master plan. There was no blueprint. I never sat down and said, "Here's exactly what this company will look like someday."

I built it one piece at a time. A customer needed something, so we figured out how to make it. We spotted another opportunity, bought another machine, learned another process, added another service. Little by little, the business grew.

That willingness to say "I bet we can figure that out" was essential to building the company. But I'm realizing that the question that helps you build a business isn't necessarily the one that helps you grow it.

Lesson 2: Just because a piece fits doesn't mean it belongs

For a long time, my guiding question was "Can we do this?" Entrepreneurs love that question. Can we print it? Embroider it? Engrave it? Make the sign? Sell it? Ship it? Figure it out?

Usually the answer is "We'll give it a try!" And five minutes later, I've ordered a machine.

But there's a better question: "Should we do this?" Or better still: "Does this belong in the thing we're trying to build?"

There are thousands of things I could add to my business, and for a project-driven person, that's dangerous. New things are exciting. Maintaining the thing you built? Not always so much.

I think a lot of entrepreneurs are wired this way, and it's part of what makes us good at starting businesses. We see possibilities everywhere. We walk into someone else's shop and think, "We could do that." We see a new machine and think, "Do you know what I could make with that?" We hear about a new market and think, "We should get into that."

Pretty soon you're standing in the middle of a giant pile of bricks, trying to build seventeen things at once.

At some point, entrepreneurial energy needs direction. The goal can't simply be to keep building. The goal has to be deciding what we're building.

Stepping back to see the whole build

This is where the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program changed how I think. It didn't hand me an instruction manual. There was no page that said, "Step 742: Annie should now build a new retail store and sign shop." (Frankly, that would make my current decisions a lot easier.)

Instead, it gave me more pieces and better tools: financial knowledge, growth strategies, leadership skills, processes, and a network of fellow entrepreneurs.

Most importantly, it taught me to step away from what I was building long enough to look at it from above. That's incredibly hard when you're buried in the day-to-day: filling orders, answering emails, fixing equipment, helping customers, managing employees, and solving whatever crisis showed up at 8:07 that morning. You're so busy building that you rarely stop to ask, "Wait… what are we actually trying to build?"

Lesson 3: Eventually, you have to stop following the instructions

When you buy a LEGO set, the finished product is right there on the box. Someone has already figured it out. Piece 37 goes here, piece 412 goes there, and eventually your pile of bricks looks exactly like the picture.

Entrepreneurship doesn't work like that. There's no picture on the box.

I desperately wish there were. I'd love to walk into my office tomorrow and find a book titled Badger Track Customs: Instructions, Ages 44 and Up. I would follow it perfectly.

But there isn't one. And that's both the scary part and the exciting part: we get to decide what we're building.

Right now, I'm doing exactly that. I'm looking at the business I've built and asking big questions about its next version:

•         What should we keep?

•         What should we grow?

•         What should we move?

•         What should we stop doing?

•         Where should we invest?

•         Which opportunities are real, and which are just shiny new LEGO sets I personally want to build?

I don't have all the answers yet. I'm standing in the messy middle. But I think that's where most entrepreneurs spend their lives. We build something. We learn from it. We realize parts of it aren't working anymore. We take a few pieces apart. And then we build the next version.

Businesses are never really finished

Here's something else I've realized about myself. When I finish a LEGO set, I love looking at it. I'm proud of it. I put it on a shelf.

But the finished set isn't the part I love most. I love the building: opening the bags, sorting the pieces, figuring out where things go, watching something that didn't exist yesterday slowly take shape. And once it's done, it isn't long before I'm looking for the next box.

Entrepreneurship works the same way for me. I don't know that I'll ever look at Badger Track Customs and say, "There. Finished."

And maybe that's okay. Businesses aren't LEGO sets. They're never really finished. They're supposed to evolve, and so are we.

I used to think my job was to keep adding pieces to the business I'd already built. More equipment, more services, more customers, more employees, more revenue. More.

Now I'm starting to understand that growth isn't always about adding another brick. Sometimes growth is taking something apart. Sometimes it's moving a piece. Sometimes it's realizing that a piece you really love doesn't belong in this particular build. And sometimes it's looking at something you've spent years building and having the courage to say, "This got me here. But it might not get me where I want to go next."

Dump out the box

And sometimes you need to dump the whole pile of bricks onto the table and ask a much more interesting question:

If I could build this again, knowing everything I know now, what would I build?

That's the question I want to leave you with. Not "How do I make my business bigger?" Not "What can I add?" But:

What am I actually trying to build?

The business you built got you here. Be proud of it. Learn from it. Keep the best pieces.

But don't become so attached to what you've already built that you're afraid to take it apart.

Because the business you built might not be the business you're supposed to keep.