Almost a year ago, I was in the trenches with two fixer-upper projects:

One a house and the other a SaaS company.

I called them “fixer-uppers” because they were both things I knew could be amazing with the right effort, but they were far from perfect when I acquired them.

Well, buckle up because both projects took some unexpected turns—and there’s a lot to unpack. 😬

In both cases, we thought we were smooth sailing with wind in our sails…

But turns out, we weren’t even close. And as much as I wish I could say these were wins, they were more like lessons.

Here’s how it all went down.

TWICE BITTEN, BUT STILL LEARNING 🐍

When you’re on the verge of thinking you’re finished, it’s tempting to call it a day and move on. But here’s what I’ve learned: just because it looks “done” doesn’t mean it’s really finished.

For the house, we were 90% done… or so we thought.

The contractor had convinced us everything was almost finished, but a little digging revealed the truth.

The kitchen island (with the sink) had no water line connected to it. The beautiful, fancy wood floors my wife picked out. Installed like they thought they were tile with 1/4in grout lines. The bathroom showers. Not waterproof because they installed a layer of drywall directly behind the tile. Not to mention 10+ other discoveries that convinced me I may have actually been their first-time practice house.

Yeah. We were so far from done, it was like starting from scratch.

The SaaS business? It looked great on paper.

We were scaling ad spend, bringing in new customers, and everything seemed to be clicking… until the money stopped hitting the bank.

We dug deeper and found some skeletons in the closet.

It turns out that our partner had an old Stripe loan for another business that had defaulted and Stripe found their way to collect. Instead of scaling up revenue, we were scaling up costs.

This was a gut punch.

But here’s the thing—when you strip it all down, you get to see the truth.

And that’s when you can really start making progress.

• Takeaway 1:
  Abdication is not delegation.
  I’m a high-trust kind of guy so I don’t like to feel like I’m micromanaging. The truth is that freedom without accountability is chaos. I would have been able to identify issues earlier if I had a better system for measuring true results. For the house, I should have been checking in weekly to actually see work “being done.” For the SaaS, we should have cut our spending in the first few days where the bank account wasn’t reflecting the funnel sales. It took us almost a month to uncover the root of the problem and that extended grace period cost me heavily.

KNOW WHEN TO CUT YOUR LOSSES ✂️

Here’s the tough part: When things aren’t working, you need to know when to cut your losses.

That’s a hard call, especially when you’ve invested so much time and energy.

But here’s the thing: you’re not losing if you’re learning.

It’s only a loss if you give up.

I could’ve just settled for “quirks” in the house—Honey, this sink is not for dishes, it’s more of a conversational art piece—but I didn’t. I was still committed to the original vision. I doubled down, found a new contractor, and in two months, the place looked better than I ever thought possible.

But with the SaaS, the trust was broken.

Once I realized what was happening behind the scenes, I had to make the hard decision to cut my losses. I walked away from that partnership, knowing it wasn’t the right fit for me anymore.

The numbers didn’t lie, and sometimes, the smartest move is to walk away.

• Takeaway 2:
  Stay true to your standards.
  Your entrepreneurial vision is usually hard for people to understand so you need standards you can fall back on. For me, Having a home we love and having 100% trust in partnerships are both non-negotiable. So I doubled down for the house and cut my losses for the SaaS.

YOU WILL NEVER LOSE IF YOU LEARN

So here’s what I’m left with: neither of these projects were wins.

They were lessons.

And those lessons? They’ve shaped everything I do moving forward.

The house will get finished. It hasn’t been easy, but we’re getting there.

The SaaS didn’t make it, but I learned a ton.

You don’t always win right away. But you always learn if you’re open to it.

You win or you learn. 🤷

So, whatever you’re facing right now, don’t feel disheartened. Learn. Grow. And get back to work.