BREAKEVEN - The Sweetest Words

 The business concept of 'breakeven' means you are bringing in enough income (sales) to cover all your expenses. You haven't made any money. But you haven't lost money either. Any start-up business works their ass off to achieve 'breakeven'. Simply put, if you can't, at a minimum achieve 'breakeven', you are going to go out of business.

Initiating a totally new concept with the social impact twist of Theodora Ghana Virtual Assistants, one expects it is going to take time before one reaches 'breakeven'. This is why one raises a lot of money, to carry one over the time until 'breakeven' arrives. This we certainly did at Theodora. 

And in the world of social impact rooted businesses, achieving 'breakeven' is a Rite of Passage. It shows the world of donors and social impact investors that you truly are able to be sustainable. At least, that is what I have been told.

All through 2023, we struggled mightily to achieve breakeven. But, it seemed as if each time we were on the brink of achieving it, something would go wrong and we'd slip back into the red (meaning losing money). It was incredibly frustrating. Then something happened right at the end of the year. We had a surge in new business from a different source than we'd gotten before. When I checked on our bank balances to pay our second payroll of the new year a week or so ago (usually the time of month when I realized that we yet again in the red), I realized that we had enough. We had covered our full month's expenses. WE HAD BROKEN EVEN! 

Truly it has taken me a couple of weeks for this to sink in. And on top of that, based on the business committed to close over the next few weeks, we should be breaking even through February and March, the whole first quarter of the year.

As I let this sink in, a part of me feels like the warrior of old. It is time for de-I to strap on the armor. It is time to go to war. All these people who told me that 'breaking even' was the critical to attracting serious money for growing a social impact venture, well now is the time to say, "We've done it. So start anteing up!"