Rejected for Nine Months, Worth Millions and What That Period Really Built…

By Eddy Massaad, Founder of Swiss Butter

For the first nine months of building Swiss Butter, very little matched the version of entrepreneurship that is often celebrated. Meetings were cordial but inconclusive. Interest was expressed and then quietly withdrawn. The concept was understood, but rarely backed. From the outside, it may have looked like hesitation or a lack of momentum. From inside the business, it felt like standing still while the rest of the world moved ahead at speed.

I questioned myself constantly during that time. Was the idea too narrow. Was the menu too simple. Was I underestimating how much constant reinvention people expect from hospitality brands. Advice came easily, often well intentioned, but rarely aligned with what customers were actually responding to. Add more options. Make it trendier. Accelerate expansion. Franchise. Each suggestion made the business more presentable on paper, and less clear in practice.

Swiss Butter was designed around restraint. A tight menu, a repeatable experience, and a clear standard that could travel without dilution. In an industry that often equates creativity with complexity, this made people uneasy. Simplicity is uncomfortable when you are used to hiding behind variety. But I believed then, and still believe now, that clarity is what allows a business to grow without losing itself.

Those months of rejection created an unexpected advantage. Without the pressure of rapid expansion, there was time to observe what was actually working. Customers returned without being prompted. Teams understood the standards being set and took pride in protecting them. The experience felt consistent, not because it was forced, but because it was understood. These are not headline moments, but they are the foundations that sustainable businesses are built on.

The greatest gift of that period was time. Time to build systems before growth demanded them. Time to treat training as a way of embedding culture rather than simply transferring skills. Time to think about leadership beyond myself, and to ask what the business would need in order to function well without my constant presence. Many businesses scale first and then scramble to create structure. We had the opportunity to do the opposite.

There is a persistent narrative in entrepreneurship that speed equals success. Expansion is seen as proof of credibility. But hospitality does not reward impatience. When growth outpaces structure, the consequences appear quickly. Customers feel inconsistency. Teams feel pressure. Decision making becomes reactive rather than deliberate. Sustainability, in real terms, is not about messaging. It is about repeatability under pressure.

During that early phase, I also had to make peace with uncertainty. Being early and being wrong feel almost identical when you are in the middle of it. The difference only becomes clear in hindsight. What grounded me was not optimism about an outcome, but confidence in the process. When customers returned repeatedly. When staff stayed longer than industry expectations. When the experience translated across locations without losing its identity. These were the signals that mattered.

As Swiss Butter expanded, those early lessons shaped every major decision. We resisted the temptation to grow faster than our internal systems could support. We prioritised ownership and control over short term scale. We invested heavily in internal leadership so the brand would not rely on a single figure to function. Growth was deliberate, sometimes slower than people think it should have been, but always aligned with what the business was built to protect.

Leadership, I learned, is less about visibility and more about restraint. It is about knowing when not to act, when not to expand, and when to let systems do their work. The rejection that once felt frustrating became a form of protection, forcing discipline at a time when discipline is usually ignored.

Today, Swiss Butter operates across multiple markets and is valued in the millions. That outcome is often reduced to a moment of success, but it was never a single moment. It was the accumulation of decisions made quietly, long before there was attention or validation. The valuation came later. The visibility followed. What truly mattered was the period when neither existed, and the business had to stand on its own.

For founders currently navigating that early phase, where progress feels slow and external validation is scarce, rejection may feel like a verdict. Often, it is not. Sometimes it is the space you need to build something durable, something that can withstand growth, pressure, and change. Those nine months of being told no shaped how I think about leadership, sustainability, and long term value far more than any early success could have.