I Can’t Wait for This Year to End

But we did learn some important things, and I’m optimistic that 2025 will be better.

By Ami Kassar

I know I’m not alone in saying that 2024 has been a tough year for business. Our revenue is down, and our expenses are up. We will lose money for the first time in many years. We had to let go of some team members we really cared about. We have struggled with cash flow, and we’ve fought hard to keep our heads up and our customers satisfied.  

I am not writing this to ask for sympathy or to try to justify what happened or explain economic cycles. But I want to try to put the year in perspective. Many of my colleagues and clients experienced similar years. It’s often said that building a business is a bit like raising a child. The start-up years are much like the infant or toddler years—filled with sleepless nights and with anxiety about whether you will ever feel as if you know what you’re doing.

But both as kids and as adults, we all experience tough years in our lives. And they often arrive with little or no warning. It could be a sickness or a death in the family.  It could be that a relationship falls apart. Every once in a while, despite how invincible we like to think we are, we are reminded that life can suck. And yet, most of the time, we work through it. So when you think back to some of the most challenging periods in your life or your kid’s life, you probably don’t miss those periods. But if you think about it, you may conclude—as I have—that they are when you grow the most. The same holds true for companies.

I can’t tell you everything we learned in 2024 as a company. But I know it’s a lot, and it will help us in the long run. We certainly learned about grit and resilience. We learned how to support each other and function better as a team. We learned how to stay true to our core values – even when the going was tough. As a result, we did what we needed to do to survive and move forward.

On one hand, I really can’t wait for 2024 to be over. In fact, I have a countdown clock on my desktop that ticks off  the minutes. But I also know that the lessons we learned this year will prove invaluable. That’s one of the reasons I’m optimistic about 2025.

I’d like to wish everyone a Happy Holiday season, and I look forward to all of us kicking some you know what in 2025.

Ami Kassar is CEO of MultiFunding.