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<p>I was catching up with a founder friend in the CPG space recently. His business is doing well now with real revenue and profits.</p>



<p>I congratulated him. He appreciated it, then told me something I didn’t know: just a couple of years ago, he was $2 million in debt. That’s crushing weight for a first-time founder in his early 30s.</p>



<p>So I asked how he managed to get out of it. “I just kept going,” he said. Then he told me the story that helped him keep going.</p>



<p>Still in debt, he went to a CPG conference to do sales. There he met a well-known founder who had successfully exited in a similar space. She shared her company’s story. What he didn’t know: her business had been $6 million in debt at one point, not long before their life-changing exit.</p>



<p>He asked her how she managed to survive that crisis. Her answer: “You just keep going.”</p>



<p>That became his mantra. If a founder could come back from $6 million in debt, he could come back from $2 million. So he kept going. And eventually, he did. (Sometimes the best motivation comes from founders who’ve survived worse and made it out.)</p>



<p>Now, let’s be clear: if your business fundamentally isn’t working, “keep going” without change is just banging your head against a brick wall.</p>



<p>But if you have genuine conviction in your product and vision – if you’re learning, iterating, and seeing signs of progress, sometimes the breakthrough comes from the simple act of not quitting. That’s what happened to my friend and the founder who inspired him. Sometimes the only way out is through.</p>
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Chang Kim's Homepage

I was catching up with a founder friend in the CPG space recently. His business is doing well now with real revenue and profits.
I congratulated him. He appreciated it, then told me something I didn’t know: just a couple of years ago, he was $2 million in debt. That’s crushing weight for a first-time founder in his early 30s.
So I asked how he managed to get out of it. “I just kept going,” he said. Then he told me the story that helped him keep going.
Still in debt, he went to a CPG conference to do sales. There he met a well-known founder who had successfully exited in a similar space. She shared her company’s story. What he didn’t know: her business had been $6 million in debt at one point, not long before their life-changing exit.
He asked her how she managed to survive that crisis. Her answer: “You just keep going.”
That became his mantra. If a founder could come back from $6 million in debt, he could come back from $2 million. So he kept going. And eventually, he did. (Sometimes the best motivation comes from founders who’ve survived worse and made it out.)
Now, let’s be clear: if your business fundamentally isn’t working, “keep going” without change is just banging your head against a brick wall.
But if you have genuine conviction in your product and vision – if you’re learning, iterating, and seeing signs of progress, sometimes the breakthrough comes from the simple act of not quitting. That’s what happened to my friend and the founder who inspired him. Sometimes the only way out is through.

Just keep going

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