Here’s what put me off scaling my creative business

At the seven year mark I found myself at the crossroads, scale my creative business into this big media house or agency or stay lean and bespoke like it’s been since inception or before it went through a few years of rapid growth post covid. 

I discussed it with so many people, bounced both ideas around with the people close to me and still no solid clarity.

Then one day I said okay, let me give myself 3 years to decide. Seeing it was our 7th, the next best number is ten. 

In our tenth year, I’d make the final decision.

So I walked into our 8th, 2025, ready to scale my business. Building systems, bringing in a consultant, and getting our papers right for financing. 

Little did I know I would face my lowest year in business ever. When I say ever, I mean - I had never had a low year like I did in 2025. 

January came by and went, things still good. February came, and that’s when everything started to go downhill. 

Our lease was ending in January, searched long and wide, a few promising properties but by end of Feb we still hadn’t found a spot. I remember on the last day we were still viewing places. 

Ultimately, my team and I decided we would do remote working while we continue the search. 

We did that and managed for a while. Meanwhile the economy was going downhill too - inflation, Trump and his tariffs. Things were not looking good. 

We started to lose clients because of this. When things are tough, marketing is unfortunately always the first to go. 

I get that, but then it started to happen more frequently. One after the other. 

Still maintaining the ship, we continued the search for space as remote working was messing with productivity and our systems. Telecom. 

Landed on a space that wasn’t the best but was good enough. Moved in, but the longer we were there, the more problematic the space was. Landlord was terrible. Space was moulding, we started to get sick. ‘Twas realllly bad.

So we broke our lease, we were meant to move into a different space with fellow creative entrepreneurs who were also in search of a space but that also fell through. 

So we went BACK to remote work. Meanwhile:

We were losing clients, finding it hard to replace them, struggling with cash flow, watching our runway get shorter, productivity dropping, morale dropping, and banks declining our financing request because of how our cash flow looked and doubting we’d be able to repay.

Feeling defeated I stopped searching for a while, I left it to the universe. By this time, we’d been remote working for 2 months. 

June was really the month things started to turn around. I was feeling up to searching again so I spent hours on Property24, then one good day I found a listing that looked promising, reached out and went to view it. 

The space I went to see was cute and I was going to say yes to it until she showed me the warehouse. 

Immediately I was like whoah, this might be IT. 

I obviously put in our application and waited for approval, anxiously. During this time, we started to land some new clients and requests. 

Then it happened. Application got approved, new client paid in full - that meant we were able to pay deposit and first month rent without hurting our already struggling cash flow.

As for our previous landlord, to this day hasn’t paid our deposit back. That, I’m charging to the game and I will be watching and waiting for his downfall.  

July came around and we moved in, our new landlords allowed us to move in early. That’s how I knew it will be good vibes. 

This new space was the turning point for me, things started to pick up again, felt like new energy. 

We landed new clients by August, we were moving out of the red. 

September I am offered a really cool opportunity to travel to Algeria for IATF. Which also just instilled this new energy of hope and inspiration. 

I came back with renewed excitement for my work and what I intended to do next. 

In October I travelled to Swakop for work and that trip brought me even more clarity. 

Landed more clients, and was able to do a company wide salary increment. 

I had officially made it out the darkest cloud of my entrepreneurial journey yet. 

And I said yeah no, I don’t ever want to go through this again. 

I know people say there’s highs and lows in business but yeah no - this wasn’t it. 

And you know what was even more hard, watching so many businesses close down. I thought, should I be doing that too maybe? I swear every other week was an announcement of a business closing down. It was so sad. And scary. 

But I understood every line in those announcement paragraphs. I knew exactly where they were coming from. I too was there. 

What kept me going? Honestly I don’t know. 

One thing that kept ringing in my head though, was, what’s the alternative? Close down and get a job? 

I said no fuxking way. 

Can’t remember when exactly but I learnt the lesson 2025 was trying to teach me. 

I actually went, “ohhhh. I get it now.”

My dream was never to build an agency. My dream was to run a fashion magazine. To sustain the magazine, I started to do freelance design work which turned into a studio and then an agency.

None of this was the plan but it happened so fast and so well - I began to think this was my purpose. 

Along the line I built a team and built this growing creative agency I didn’t plan to. Because it was working, I kept going. Because I was so good at it, it became easy. 

But again, this was never the dream. 

I was building a business not for me but for the creatives that walked through my door. For the industry, because we needed an agency that was different from the norm. I was building a business that would fend for my siblings. 

I wasn’t building a business for myself. In fact, I was neglecting myself. Putting myself through so much just to make sure I could pay people at the end of the month. Overworking myself for clients who didn’t even care about their businesses or how much I worked to ensure their brand looked great online. 

I have worked with small businesses who demand too much when they can’t pay for it. I have worked with big brands who don’t know what the hell they’re doing, I have also worked with clients who don’t value creative work. 

I have worked with young high achieving creatives, people just here for the vibes, people who should try a different path and even people I regret hiring because they became such bad energy and made me uncomfortable in my own space. 

I have handled big budgets, seen my business make 2 million on paper.  

I have maximized all the experiences that come with running a business. 

But I had lost myself in something I wasn’t meant to be doing anymore. 

2025 was trying tell me to not keep going that direction, to realise how far I had drifted away and to come back to myself. 

Ever since this realization I have been purging and detaching from this identity I have carried for so long. Stripping off this self I didn’t recognize. 

2025 was indeed an ego death. I hated the process but I’m glad to have made it the other side. 

I get it now. This next phase is to return to self. And build a business for me. 

The funny thing is I have always spoken about how Beso Media happened unintentionally. Only this year when I was speaking to young entrepreneurs in Katutura I spoke about how Beso Media came by the force of the clients I freelanced for, and then one of them asked me “did you actually really want to do this?” The answer is no. This was never the plan. 

I am sharing this because there’s been a wave of romanticising founder journeys, running a business, girl bossing, where people aren’t showing the downside of running a business - the highs are there yes but whew the lowwwws? We should share those too perhaps. 

I want to let other creatives know that the lows exist, the bad exists, the hard exists, it’s very important to practice discernment on knowing what is for you and moving towards a dream that doesn’t take you away from yourself. 

Honestly, I don’t even have advice because some of these things you just need to go through yourself. I needed to go through this myself, no advice would have stopped me. Literally, telling me not to do something just makes me want to do it more.

I am grateful to have had my sister to go through this with, she was in the trenches with me and I felt bad for putting her through that. From here on, only the best for my baby girl.

My partner for being my sounding board and holding space for me to collapse when I had to be strong at work, every day, while going through this.

He was my soft landing. 

My team for soldiering on even through the tides.

The clients who stayed even when things were tough all around. 

The new clients who came in and moved the needle for us as we did them. 

Chantal Claasen for walking me through some hard moments and decisions. 

To everyone who cheer me on on socials. Every “you’ve got this” or “you’re doing amazing” meant something to me.

I am grateful to myself for being resilient through a storm I didn’t know how to navigate through. For trusting myself. 

For making it through. 

[PS]

My business is doing SO well right now. So am I.

My nervous system is regulated. I am extremely aligned with what I want to be building, the people I want to work with, and who I am doing this for.

My business and I came out the other side stronger.

The funny thing about that season is that, as someone who loves control and usually is, none of what was happening was in my control. It was as if a force was looming and making everything fall and break in front of me and there’s nothing I could do to fix it in real time.

And as my business turns nine in two weeks, ushering us into our tenth year, I’m sitting on the edge of my seat, anticipating what the grand decision will be.