3 Costly Business Mistakes We Made and How We Fixed Them

3 Costly Business Mistakes We Made & How We Fixed Them

Running a business is a constant learning curve. Mistakes happen—some big, some small—and they’re an inevitable part of growth. While they can be frustrating (and sometimes costly), every stumble comes with a lesson that helps you grow stronger. Cliche but true.

Here are the top three mistakes (that come to mind) we’ve made in our journey at Foxy Home Staging, what we learned from them, and how they’ve shaped the way we operate today.

Let’s start with the mistake that cost us $20,000 in revenue. Yep, you read that right.

When we transitioned our website to a new hosting platform, we didn’t properly test our online quote system. For six weeks, we unknowingly missed customer inquiries, resulting in 42 unfulfilled quote requests. How we didn’t notice earlier, we’ll never know—let’s just say things were busy, and it slipped through the cracks.

This taught us the importance of testing everything thoroughly, especially when making changes to critical systems. Backend systems need to be double-checked before going live, and regular reviews should be a part of your process. Now, we have checks in place to catch issues before they snowball into costly problems.

Growing a business is exciting, but it comes with its own challenges. When we expanded from a small, high-performing team to a larger one, we failed to adapt quickly enough. Processes that worked for a team of five didn’t cut it for a team of 35.

We relied on unspoken rules and assumed new staff would have the same level of experience and knowledge as our founding team. This led to mishaps like improper handling of heavy stock, scratched floors, and even workplace injuries. Ouch.

From this, we learned that scaling requires clear systems, training, and safety protocols. We’ve since implemented structured rules, a dedicated training program, and even added an educator role to ensure consistency across the board. Scalability starts with strong foundations and adapting processes to meet the needs of a larger team.

This is a tough one. When you’ve built a close-knit team, it’s incredibly hard to let someone go—even when it’s clear they’re not the right fit. We’ve made the mistake of keeping people far too long, hoping things would improve.

What we’ve learned the hard way is that one person’s negative energy can affect the entire team and take months to recover from. While hiring decisions are often a bit of a gamble, recognising when someone isn’t a fit early and acting quickly is crucial for maintaining team culture. Protecting your team’s harmony and values is far more important than holding onto someone who isn’t working out.

Mistakes like these aren’t just inevitable—they’re essential. They teach you what works, what doesn’t, and where to improve. Whether it’s learning to test systems, creating scalable processes, or protecting your team culture, every error has been a stepping stone in our journey.

If you’re running a business, you’ll face your own challenges (and plenty of mistakes). The key is to reflect, learn, and keep moving forward. What mistakes have shaped your business journey? Let us know in the comments—we’d love to hear your lessons learned.