She had the distribution.
She had the buyers.
She had the product.
And she shut it down anyway.
This week on The Irresistible Factor, I welcomed back Alison Cayne.
A few years ago, she came on the podcast to talk about building Haven's Kitchen.
This time, she came back to talk about something founders rarely discuss publicly:
How she knew it was time to walk away.
What struck me most was that this wasn't a failed business.
The brand was loved.
The products were loved.
Retailers were still asking for it.
Buyers were still calling.
But Alison saw something many founders refuse to see:
A great brand and a great product aren't enough if the business model doesn't work.
One line from the conversation stayed with me:
"A business is a three-legged stool: product, brand, and business."
She had two of the three.
And she was honest enough to admit it.
That takes courage.
But the reason I wanted her back wasn't just to talk about what ended.
It was to talk about what comes next.
Because after shutting down Haven's Kitchen, Alison didn't disappear.
She spent time unpacking what worked, what didn't, and what she wanted her next chapter to look like.
The result is Choulie.
A fragrance-infused body oil brand built for women who are tired of being told they have a problem to solve.
What fascinated me was how intentionally she approached this next business.
A channel she controls.
Better margins.
Less operational complexity.
A customer she knows intimately because she is the customer.
In many ways, Choulie feels like the product of everything she learned building Haven's Kitchen.
Not a pivot. An evolution.
There was another part of the conversation I couldn't stop thinking about.
Alison talked about interviewing dozens of women in midlife and realizing there was a false choice being presented:
Either fight aging with everything you've got.
Or stop caring altogether.
Her belief?
Most women are somewhere in the middle.
They want products that make them feel good.
Look good.
Smell good.
Without being told they're broken, aging incorrectly, or in need of fixing.
That's a much bigger insight than fragrance.
It's a perspective on how an entire generation of women wants to be seen.
The whole conversation is packed with founder lessons, but my favorite may have been this:
"The standards you accept become your standards."
That's true in business.
It's true in leadership.
And it's true in life.
We spend a lot of time celebrating founders who never quit.
Maybe we should spend a little more time celebrating founders who know when to stop, learn, and build something better.
