4 years ago I started a new business, vimi. I had money saved up to invest in it, an idea worth pursuing, and the timing felt right.
I wanted to build a simple business to help people deliver meaningful video messages in moments that matter, personally - weddings, birthdays, achievements - and professionally - welcoming customers, introducing new products and services, recruiting talent, and celebrating wins. I wanted to bridge the gap from physical to digital. To bring the greeting card market from 1850 to the present day. And perhaps save us from making useless swag products to send out.
It didn’t quite work out that way.
I gave it everything. My savings, my time, my heart… plus support from my generous parents and partner.
But, in the end, I couldn’t find enough customers who cared about it to make it sustainable.
So this is the end of the line for vimi.
To everyone who used vimi, thank you for giving us a chance to help you share a meaningful message with someone important.
To everyone who supported vimi in all kinds of important ways, thank you for believing in us enough to share in our journey.
A few years ago, this outcome would have crushed me. Not today.
From one perspective, this can feel like a failure. I didn’t achieve the outcome I wanted. That was my natural, first reaction.
But there’s another way to see it. One that replaced the weight of disappointment with understanding.
In trying to understand how to make vimi work and why it had a big impact on certain customers but not others, I came across ideas and concepts that shook the foundation of everything I thought I knew about business, meaning, and purpose.
It forced a reckoning with things I had taken for granted. And the direction of this inquiry changed the course of my life.
So yes, from one angle, it didn’t work. But from another, it was the most important chapter so far.
The work I’m doing now is the expression of profound knowledge I discovered through this journey. It’s impact is echoing throughout my life and the people around me.
I know this is the work I must continue.
The reason I’m sharing this is simple:
You can never know up front how things will turn out. And sometimes, we invest so deeply that we struggle to let go, even when the signs are loud and clear.
We mistake endings for failures because we were taught to measure worth in outcomes. But endings are how life makes space for what’s next.
Every venture, every relationship, every chapter has its natural rhythm: a beginning filled with vision, a middle full of effort, and an end that asks for grace.
It takes courage to start. But it takes even greater courage to stop, and to release what no longer wants to grow through you.
When something ends, it’s not the dream that dies. Only the form that carried it so far. The essence remains, waiting to express itself in a new way.
So if you’re standing where I once stood, wondering whether to hold on or move on: listen closely.
If you can hear the whisper of peace beneath the noise of guilt or fear, that’s your signal.
It’s the quiet hand of life, guiding you toward what’s next.
It’s okay to move on.
© 2025 Zaheer Merali.
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