Twelve years ago, I bought the company where I had been employed.

I was excited. I was optimistic. I was ready to grow revenue like you've never seen.

Because I had been working there I knew that we needed to replace our trade show booth. I wanted to make an impression and show that the brand had been updated and was setting a new course.

After spending $30,000 on a new trade show booth I learned the lesson of walking before you run.

I thought that I knew what would work and I paid a pretty price for it. Instead, I should have bootstrapped a booth together with minimal investment and gathered more information on what was actually required.

Instead of finding the minimum viable booth set up and iterating from there I threw money away trying to make a big impression.