Working in the hospitality industry, Reyanne Mustafa saw firsthand how much food is regularly wasted. So, she decided to do something about it.
She and friend Kristian Krugman decided to upcycle unused rice and transform it into flour for cookies. That concept morphed into SOULMUCH, a line of upcycled food products that included cookies and granola.
Unfortunately, due to new environmental laws in California and personal circumstances for both Kristian and Reyanne, they made the difficult decision to dissolve the business in June 2022.
Here, Reyanne shares her feelings regarding the end of SOULMUCH. For other entrepreneurs processing the closing of your startup, please know you are not alone. Statistics show that 20% of new businesses close within the first year and 50% do not survive the first five.
Every year Thanksgiving rolls around in the United States and you are prompted with the question, “what are you grateful for” or “name one thing you are thankful for this past year.”
Not every year is perfect and it may be a struggle to revisit painful memories. At competitions, the polite answer is to say, “I’m thankful to be nominated,” but it’s only human to feel disappointed when your name isn’t called.
Or, if you are fired from the job. Are you grateful for that experience? Maybe some aspects, but it’s normal to feel resentment when looking back at it.
In my case, 2022 was the year my business, SOULMUCH failed. It was our decision to shut down operations, but it doesn’t negate the fact that our business didn’t succeed.
People believed in us including our customers, investors, vendors, friends, and family. They gave us their hard-earned money, and we had to deal with the emotions that came with letting them down.
And, I want to say I'm not alone in that. I feel like other founders probably feel that, too. It's one thing to disappoint yourself, but the feeling of disappointing others is the hardest thing to swallow.
Still, I am so thankful, and I don't think thank you does justice for the amount of gratitude that I feel.
I'm always trying to show an extreme amount of support because I have felt so supported in my life and I want to show that same support to others.
However, after telling everyone about our decision, I had to live with my new status – a former CPG founder.
I needed to know that I'm still loved even if I don't have this thing anymore. Owning a business gave me so much self-worth and so much value that I thought it gave me my value.
Would people still like me? Would I be invited to networking events? Would I still have this status?
So, I’m giving myself time to reset and figure out my next move. But, I I wouldn't change anything now because all of the mistakes that I made, which were a lot more lessons. I wouldn't have been able to learn them or get them cemented in my brain if it wasn't for the mistakes and lessons learned from them.
If I were to move forward and start a new business, I'd be able to extrapolate all the lessons learned from SOULMUCH and would be much more attractive to an investor.
Failure is almost a secret club that nobody wants to talk about. However, I would be more than happy to connect. I hope maybe there are other people out there that would love to feel supported in this too.
In addition to saving 50,000 pounds of food, if I’m able to normalize failure and create community – that’s an incredible legacy for SOULMUCH.
For that, I’m eternally grateful.
Reyanne Mustafa co-founded SOULMUCH in 2017 with Kristian Krugman. Reyanne was the runner-up and audience choice winner of the 2021 Enthuse Foundation Pitch Competition. Follow her on Instagram @reyannemustafa.
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