I tried posting this in a few other subs and it got deleted. I figured this might be a good place to share it.

In early 2020, I started a CBD/hemp business. I'd been making CBD products for myself, family, and friends for years, it was something I was passionate about and spent years learning about, so I figured I would try turning that into something bigger. I'm disabled, have never been able to work a typical job, and I needed something to do with my time, plus a way to bring in some kind of income would be great. I've never been able to feel like I contribute in any way. My wife and I have been eager to start a family, we've only been waiting for more stability before we bring a child into the world.

I only saw positives in my decision to start up. I'd be making options for affordable, high quality cannabinoid products available to those who rely on them, helping my own mental health by doing something productive with my days, and taking stress off of my wife (and myself) by bringing in a bit of a second income. I figured this would either take off or it wouldn't. The worst that could happen is nobody is interested in our products, right?

I was wrong. *Very wrong*.

It started slow. We were only using whatever we could save after rent, bills, food, etc to build the business, and it was only my wife and I. Once we had enough product ready and our website set up, we started posting on Facebook, Instagram, etc. For the first few months, we got 2-3 sales per month, usually family, friends, or people that friends/family refered to us. Over the next 6 months, that grew to about 1-2 orders per week.
I absolutely loved talking with customers. People were interested in our products, wanted to learn more, wanted to know about us, why we started, how CBD works, which products would be best for them, etc. Things were going great, but we weren't seeing much growth. While I loved what I was doing, I knew we needed to grow for the business to survive long term.

I partnered up with a few small farms and started offering hemp flower. Customers had been asking for it since we opened. We stayed away from this originally due to the stricter restrictions on selling flower, payment processors not accepting hemp flower vendors, and a few other reasons. In the end, we weighed the pros and cons, decided to work through the cons, and made it work.

Our mission has always been affordability, so I did this in a way that made the most sense at the time: work directly with the farms during the growing process, harvest, dry, cure, and trim our own flower. This means we were saving around 75% of what we would be paying for cured, trimmed, retail ready hemp flower buds by doing the work ourselves.
Throughout the fall (September-November) I spent every other week at the farm working. My wife stayed home because she works a separate full time job, and to keep up on any orders we got when I was away.
This allowed us to offer high quality flower at a lower price point. 

I was proud. Legitimately proud of myself, probably the first time in my life I've allowed myself to feel that. We weren't making a huge profit, we weren't big, but you know what? I'd wake up to emails thanking me for what I do. People would tell me how our products have helped them. I was doing *something* after nearly 25 years of thinking I never would. This was the absolute best couple months of my life and I would give anything to go back to this.

December 2020. We had released a new strain for pre-order, scheduled to ship out on Nov. 30 - a strain of hemp flower high in THCa. I posted about this on a subreddit dedicated to these strains. I didn't realize the how many people would be interested. Before the end of the week, we had received over 300 pre-orders. Here's mistake #1. I should have immediately closed orders. I have *no idea* the amount of work it takes for two people to package up this many orders. I told myself, "it's okay, we can handle it. We have time".

For the most part, we did. We worked 12-16 hour days, we got the packages shipped out by Dec. 2. A little bit late, but we did this as quickly as we possibly could while allowing a few hours for sleep. Then, I started getting emails that packages were stuck in "pre-shipment" status on tracking. We bought the labels through our website and scheduled   USPS pick-ups. We waited a few days. Still, about half of the packages weren't scanned. After a week or so, some people reached out to let me know they received the package even though tracking never updated. Still, I had around 40 people emailing that they hadn't received anything and tracking hadn't updated.

We decided to give it 3 weeks before sending a replacement in case they were stuck somewhere and would still be delivered. A few few of them were, but no luck with the majority of them.
USPS couldn't tell us anything since tracking never updated. It was pretty much "Yeah that happens sometimes. Sorry. Good luck".
We had to process around 35 replacement packages  on top of our regular workload, sending out thousands of dollars worth of product that we had already shipped out, and get back to too many emails to count every day. 90% of the time it was only myself working - my wife was busy at work.

I got extremely overwhelmed. Every day, I'd get new emails that someone didn't receive a package. I was behind on shipping replacements as is and they kept piling up. I got behind on regular orders. After taking a huge hit financially due to this, I couldn't close orders. I had to keep something coming in to keep the business afloat. On top of that, packages were *still* going missing. We started going in and handing the packages to postal worker personally. Still, we had packages not being scanned.

Customers were mad, understandably. When they called USPS themselves, they were told "This just means the seller printed a label but hasn't shipped the package". Posts were popping up on Reddit, people began speculating if we were running some kind of scam. I explained the situation, I posted almost weekly with updates, I was trying to be open with everyone. I posted notices on here, and in 3 places on our website, explaining the delays and added a 5-7 business day processing time so people wouldn't order from if they needed something urgently. I hoped people would see all of this and only order from us if they didn't mind waiting longer than average.

I was working almost 24/7. I had no schedule, I didn't sleep. I took naps here and there for an hour or two - usually when I'd fall asleep at my desk after being awake over 48 hours.

During this, my mom died from Covid-19. Not long after, on a trip to the farm, I tripped and dislocated my knee that I already had surgically repaired in 2018. I walked on the injury for a couple weeks before seeing my orthopedic surgeon, finding out I likely tore most of the repairs, and will need the surgery done again. The first time I couldn't walk independently for over 4 months, I didn't have full function of my leg for over a year.
Finding out that I needed to go through this again was essentially the straw that broke the camels back. I was done. I had been pushing back any thoughts of my mom, I didn't let myself grieve or process the loss until this point.

I closed orders and stayed in bed for nearly 2 weeks. I had work to do, but I didn't care. I didn't care if people were mad. Truthfully, I didn't care to live, let alone keep my business running. I entirely lost my passion for CBD and hemp. I slept 14+ hours daily, would wake up to customers telling me I'm pathetic, I'm disgusting, that I should give up, that I make this entire industry look bad, among other things. I had people finding personal information about me and threatening to post it on Reddit. I still do. 

A few days ago, I was called a f**g*t, told "you've pissed me off, now you'll learn a lesson" by another CBD/hemp vendor. People have posted "buyer beware, don't buy from them", "they're a scam" etc in every subreddit we've ever posted in and on our older posts. Just last night, I logged into instagram for the first time in months and I had been tagged in the comments of multiple posts, such as a post where another company was talking about shipping orders out same-day. Someone tagged me and said "take notes, you could learn something from this". People have been picking apart everything we do/say, even going so far as posting about the business name because it has the word "honest" in it. They say we wouldn't have chose that if we were actually honest.

I did eventually get back up. I got help, I got into grief counseling, got back to work, but I still don't have my passion for this back. We're still working on catching up. People are still mad.
We brought on a couple people who have business experience and they took over for customer service and management, but it's taking time to get things back on track. I'm starting to think we won't be able to.

When you google our name, these "buyer beware, scam" posts come up. Any positive review about us is downvoted. People are disputing their orders even after they've received it. Anyone who says anything good about us is attacked. I can't even attempt to explain myself, because I'm hit with "why are you on here instead of working?" Or "lol it's always a sob story with you, just ship the shit out! Not too hard to put stuff in a box."

I shouldn't have let emails go without a response. I shouldn't have slept my life away for weeks without shipping packages. I made mistakes, but damn. I'm not sure if I do deserve the hate I've got. I feel like I deserve criticism, I deserve to be held accountable for what I've done, but the personal attacks are excessive.

Lesson learned: When you're struggling, tell someone. Don't wait until it gets to the point that you're stuck in a deep depression. Reach out. There's no shame in needing help. There's no shame in admitting you're not doing good.
If I could have told *anyone* how much I was struggling, I could have had this entire situation resolved months ago. I could have gained some trust back, I could have kept my passion for my work. I wouldn't have countless people convinced I'm running a scam.

I just needed to get this out somewhere. If you've read it, thanks.