Why My Startup Failed After Twelve Successful Years

Hint: because I trusted my "gut" rather than the data...

Hey there. I'm Dariusz. Here is my story of startup success and failure. I want to share this story because you might relate to my mistakes -- and learn how to avoid them.

You see... I ran a successful startup for 12 years, with three remote offices. (ScanCanada.ca).

But at the end of year 12, I had to close.

Poof.

No more customers. No more teams. No more offices.

Just like that. A business system I built from scratch... that I thought would last for at least 20 years... just dissolved.

I'm telling you this because just like the Titanic, my startup was heading into a huge problem... but I didn't foresee this huge problem because I didn't bother to look at the data. I trusted my "gut" rather than looking at the data.

So, let me explain what happened -- and how I would never make the same mistake again...

Probably LIke You, I Started Small, And It Took Years For My First Success

From 2001 to 2005, I failed to start a business. I had a day job working for large oil and gas companies. And at night, I built my small businesses. But for 4 years, I failed. I didn't even get one customer.

But then in 2005, and after 4 years of struggling I found a good idea: converting old photos, slides, negatives, VHS tapes, and old film into digital.

The biggest lesson I learned from my failures was: test small, test fast, find a market with unmet needs, and try to avoid as many upfront costs as you can.

Crawl. Walk. Run.

So I did that. I put up a free classified ad for scanning services. And in two days, I had my first customer.

The funny thing is, I had NO website. I had no equipment. I was just testing an idea. Small scale. And it worked!

So I ramped up. I put up my website (DigitalCalgary.com), bought scanning equipment, and put up more classified ads. And within 3 months I was getting enough work that I quit my corporate job.

nd probably like you, I failed for years before my first success. This wasn't an "overnight success". With failure, you learn and grow. From destruction comes rebirth.

But unfortunately, this wasn't the last time I would fail...

Product Growth Driven By Data

In my first year of business, I kept everything in my head. Yeah, I kept a spreadsheet of my customers, sales, and website visitors. But I only glanced at it.

But then there came a point in my business where things got so complex that I wasn't able to manage everything in my head.

So I started collecting data. I set up a Google Analytics account in 2006. And a simple Google Sheet.

I tracked 3 main metrics:

From watching my data, I noticed that a lot of my traffic came from keyword search terms like "best resolution to scan" and "how to scan slides".

So that's what I wrote about. I put up blogs and articles talking about what they wanted to know about.

Personally, I wanted to talk about technical nerdy stuff... but I listened to my data... I listened to what the market wanted. So I made content that was about them, not me.

My goal was growth. It wasn't to express my creativity or show off how smart I was. I wanted my content to resonate with my prospects.

I put the customer first.

And this worked like crazy. My site became an "authority" on scanning. And this meant my SEO skyrocketed. And having good SEO meant more visitors to my site. And more visitors meant more customers.

And by 2008 I renamed my business to ScanCanada.ca, and I put up a whole new separate blog called HowToScan.ca.

And thanks to collecting data, analyzing that data, and creating a marketing strategy, it took me only three years to go from a small local scan company, to becoming a national company, with 3 remote offices, that attracted the biggest clients and organizations in Canada...

List of some of my biggest clients...

But I made a big mistake...

"Gut Feelings" Over Data Analytics

Now it's around 2010. And after five years of collecting data, watching it, and creating successful marketing strategies, I develop a "gut feeling" on what works, and what doesn't work.

And things were working.

People and companies seemed to keep ordering. My small team and I were doing well. We were busy.

So I thought, "we'll keep doing what we're doing". And so I stopped tracking data because things were working.

Until...

When What Works Finally Doesn't -- What Do You Do?

From 2010 - 2012, were actually the most successful years of my business.

But something was happening in 2010: my SEO was slipping. I kinda knew this was happening because I would glance at my Google Analytics.

But even still, sales were growing and despite my SEO going down, I didn't bother looking into why it was slipping.

But then around 2013, I knew something definitely was wrong. Every month, I was getting less and less sales. And by 2014, I had to close my two remote offices.

So what did I do to try to fix low sales?

Did I look at the numbers and see why my SEO was so bad?

Nope!

I did what I always did: write MORE blog articles.

Why?

Because my "gut feeling" told me that blogs and articles meant better SEO... and SEO meant more traffic.. and more traffic meant more customers.

In my mind, what worked in 2005 will work in 2013.

But I was dead wrong...

The Iceberg That Sank My Business

Looking back, I now know that sometime in 2010, people started using social media as their main source for content. Instead of visiting a bunch of small websites and blogs and forums, people started to gravitate to big platforms. YouTube. Twitter. Reddit. Facebook. Instagram.

This was the "iceberg" I was slowly heading into.

People's behavior was changing. Algorithms changed. Google changed. SEO ranking changed.

And I failed to foresee these changes because, honestly, I was afraid to look at the data.

Why?

Because maybe the data would tell me I was wrong. And if I didn't look at the data, I can never be wrong.

I didn't want to face my fears.

So I clung on to my "gut feeling", and refused to see what was really going on: that my blog and articles were no longer working.

And because my SEO was bad, I was no longer getting traffic. And no traffic means no customers. And no customers, means no word-of-mouth.

My whole "system" broke because I was too stubborn to look at the numbers. I always went with my "gut". And for 10 years I was right. Things were a success.

But then the environment changed. And I didn't adapt.

My big lesson here?

Data Analytics Helps You Adapt By Foreseeing Problems Before They Happen

Looking back, if I continued to track data in 2010, I would have seen two major changes:

Change #1: Like I said, social media and big platforms were where people hung out to consume content. Google saw this, and changed their algorithm. So small blogs, forums, and websites were ranked lower because less and less people visited them.

The funny thing is, I did have a YouTube channel in 2010. And looking back at my Google Analytics, my YouTube visits were increasing. And if I would have kept my commitment to making data-driven decisions, I would have started posting more content on YouTube (and Twitter). But nope. I was "right". In my mind blogs and articles will always work. And so I didn't adapt to these changes, and kept writing blogs and articles nobody found or read.

Change #2: From 2005 - 2012, I wrote a lot about how to scan photos, slides, and negatives into digital. This brought in a lot of free, organic traffic. But another change I totally missed was people were starting to use apps and phones to "scan" their old photos.

But because I didn't bother looking at keyword search data anymore, I didn't foresee this. I just kept writing about crap that nobody cared about. I should have pivoted my business, and looked more into this technological shift. And I should have started writing about how to "scan" your photos and film using your phone.

Basically, I failed to adapt because I didn't look at the data. And slowly, my business was dying. And by 2017, I closed it.

After Destruction There Is Rebirth

After ScanCanada.ca and HowToScan.ca, I found a corporate job doing marketing and pricing analytics. I learned a lot more formal data analytic techniques from that job.

Then in 2020 I started another company, doing marketing campaigns for video game companies. And when helping my clients, I noticed that their biggest weakness wasn't their marketing -- it was waste.

They were wasting time and energy posting on Reddit, YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok. They were throwing everything up against the wall and seeing what sticks.

Their marketing was unfocused. And they all said their marketing wasn't working.

It wasn't working because they were putting effort into the wrong platforms.

So I helped them track data. I wanted to see which platform would get them the best ROI.

In other words, I wanted to find the 20% that gives you 80% of the results.

For some game companies, it was TikTok. For others it was YouTube. But my point was, they were spending an hour or two on creating content -- and they didn't know which content was working, and which platform was the best. They were putting in 80% of the effort and only getting 20% of the results.

So I helped them find that 20% that gave them 80% of the results -- and told them to stop doing the rest.

By spending less time flailing around and posting on every platform, I streamlined their content creation process. I help reduce waste because now they were only spending maybe 30 minutes creating content on the platform that was best suited for their game.

And reducing waste and you can now put that time, money, energy into improving your product, and improving the customer experience.

But along with data analytics, I was also doing SEO, web development, store page copy, and even marketing art. So I took my own advice:

"Find the 20% that gives you 80% of the results".

So in late 2024, I decided to go "all in" and just focus on marketing data analytics. And here we are! Rebirth.

Free Marketing Data Analytics Project: What You Get...

Before you decide on anything, I would like to invite you to a Free Marketing Data Analysis Project.

It's very simple. At the end of our project, you will get a Marketing Data Report. Your report will have "actionable insights" that will show you where your marketing process isn't working, and solutions how to fix them.

There are no costs, or obligations. I want you and your team to be 100% sure you picked the right "data guy" before you commit to a bigger project.

So before you and I start a formal paid project, put me to the test and see what I can do for you.

The first step is to click this link, and fill out the form...

Start with a Free Marketing Data Analysis Project, click here...

Thanks for reading! Looking forward to helping you and your team improve your marketing process so that your product and profits grow!

Later!

profile picture of dariusz michniewicz

Dariusz Michniewicz

Port Stanley, ON, CANADA