After launching and then closing Proteau just three years after it hit the market, John deBary has come to realize that sales aren’t the only way to measure success
Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about failure. At the end of 2022, I shut down Proteau, the nonalcoholic drinks company I started. I had dedicated the past five years of my life to it, and for just three of those years saw my bottles in the market. I can’t escape the feeling that I’ve failed, and I’d be lying if I said that seeing other, similar brands in the marketplace did not elicit a jittery tinge of envy, as if others’ success was paid for with my defeat. But I’ve also come to realize that it’s easy for us to see our efforts in a binary success-or-failure model — and that framing is completely inadequate for our lives and the projects we pursue.
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