My first client was 45 days late paying. Who else has been through this hell?"

Hey everyone,

Just had a flashback to my early consulting days. You know that moment - single big client, 45 days late paying, contractors needing their money...

Ended up in my car at midnight taking out a Stripe loan to pay my team.

Made me wonder how many other business owners have been through this? That feeling when: - You're refreshing your inbox every 5 minutes - Your stomach drops with every phone call - You're practicing what to tell your team if the money doesn't come - You look "successful" on the outside but you're terrified

How did you handle it? What got you through?

For me, the wake-up call was realizing that having one big client isn't running a business - it's just being an employee with extra steps. They don't even have to fire you - they can just... delay payment.

This experience actually shaped a core concept in my book "Business as a Baby" - because your business needs time to grow through developmental stages. Just like you wouldn't expect a baby to run before crawling, you can't skip the stage of building a stable client base. Each stage needs its own time and protection.

Now we require 50% upfront and maintain a 3-month runway. But man, getting there was rough.

What's your story? How did you protect yourself after going through something similar? Would love to hear what others learned from these moments.

EDIT: Holy shit, the stories coming in are intense. This really seems to be a shared trauma we don't talk about enough. Keep sharing - there's something powerful about knowing we're not alone in this.