People Explain How A Single Bad Decision Destroyed A Successful Company

We're human, and we all make mistakes. Most of the time, we can apologize, strive to do better, and move on.

But sometimes we make mistakes that leave a much deeper mark, and they can ruin a person's reputation, their future, or even bring down an entire successful business.

That's infinitely harder to come back from.

Already cringing, Redditor Flatulantic asked:

"What single decisions have wrecked successful companies?"

The Beloved Catalogue

"Sears discontinuing their catalog in the early 90s but not entering online sales until much later and long after Amazon took over what they gave up."

- llcucf80

"Sears was literally Amazon a hundred years before Amazon even existed, and they threw it away."

- boxsterguy

"Just finished my MBA; this is literally taught in several classes as a failure to not only anticipate a changing economy but an inability to reevaluate a business decision in light of new evidence. Sears didn't fail overnight, they failed over a couple decades."

- Uncle_Baconnn

Looking For The Next Best Thing

"Osborne Computer began showing off its next-generation computer when it wasn't ready yet. Everyone canceled orders for the in-market model in anticipation of the new one, which tanked the company."

- chickenmantesta

Content For All Ages

"I still laugh about tumblr's decision to ban all adult content on their website... which was like 95% of their active user base."

- PrimalMoose

"Turns out reading some rando's blog post wasn't what drew people in. Who could've thought. If only there was a way to see what posts generated a lot of traffic."

- Thendrall

"Remember when OnlyFans was going to do the same thing a couple years back? What a disaster that would have been."

- Inside-Cancel

Money First, Flavor Later

"Whatever Quiznos decided to do..."

- jonnykappahala

"Corporate got extremely greedy and charged their franchise owners so much for their product that they couldn’t afford their own food which bankrupted their stores. One of the dumbest ways to go belly up in history."

- dbd1988

"Not to mention, early on in the Quiznos franchise, they loaded up your subs and it was awesome. The last time I went to a Quiznos (2011), they had a scale and weighed the meat, and I watched them take meat off the scale to get it down to a specific target number. It was basically a loaf of bread with a couple small pieces of chicken in it. That's when I gave up on them."

- Weztinlaar

The Difference Between One Bill And Two

"Small scale. Our local pizza place did a slice meal (big slice, fries, a dip and a drink) for five euro. A simple one-euro increase absolutely killed them."

"This was when cash was far more common and the psychology of just handing over a fiver was the ticket."

- AulMoanBag

The Nostalgic BlackBerry Keyboard

"BlackBerry for letting their arrogance think that Apple or Google couldn't challenge their majority in the smartphone market. Also, ignoring creating a smartphone without a physical keypad until it was way too late."

- billy_zef

"Yup. I am Canadian and a retired IT executive and consultant. Blackberry were the pioneers of always connected data devices, that were also phones. The security of Blackberry Enterprise Server with end to end encryption meant I could be confident with deployment to all staff."

"The BlackBerry had chat, with read receipt indicators... Something that we now take for granted. They also had physical QWERTY keyboards vs multipress the digits on a dialpad to get letters. Made decent returns on my investments with them, but damn did they tank quickly."

- GreenWeenie1965

The Height Of Gaming

"THQ was one of the bigger publishers in video games. They held Darksiders, Saints Row, Destroy All Humans, and had deals with Disney, Dreamworks, Nickelodeon and the WWE."

"They developed the uDraw Game Tablet. A $70 drawing tablet accessory for the Wii, PS3 and 360. This tablet was a sales diester and single handedly killed THQ."

"The company went bankrupt and Nordic Games purchased big swaths of their IP. Today they make games under the name THQ Nordic, but original THQ died at the hands of the tablets."

"What is funny is obviously Nintendo went on to make the Wii U, another sales flub but obviously they must have taken some inspo from the uDraw."

- Jim777PS3

Location, Location, Location!

"Target opening stores but not infrastructure in Canada and also doing no research on why Canadians shop at Target in the US."

- SniperTeamTango

"I worked at Target through college and got sent to Canada to help set up and open a store at the start of summer break."

"It was closed before I went back to classes."

- KhaosElement

"If I remember right, Target in the US is successful due in part to their inventory system. They decided to throw that all out the window for Canada and used SAP. Warehouses were misreporting numbers all over the country so some locations wouldn't get any stock and some would get triple."

- Strongit

So Elitist

"Artesian Builds. Company CEO, Noah Katz, gets on their normal PC building live stream where they are going to give away a PC to one of their affiliates. Name gets drawn. Katz looks up the affiliate, reads out the metadata for the affiliate, decides this person isn't important enough, and rescinds the offer. All proudly live on stream."

"This happened on March 1, 2022. The company announced they were shutting down eight days later."

- LordShtark

Believe In Your Product

"Gerald Ratner, CEO of The Ratner Group, operated a popular and successful jewelry business in the UK in the 1980s. He managed to sink his entire business enterprise in under ten seconds when he made a public TV appearance and joked that his company's products were 'total crap.'"

"The value of his business dropped by about half a billion pounds in the immediate aftermath and almost went completely out of business."

- ThadisJones

A Misaligned Mission

"GE making Jack Welch CEO. GE was one of the gold star companies of the US, EVERYBODY wanted to work at GE because you’d be set for life. They took care of their employees, made a ton of money, made good products, what more could you ask for? Then Jack Welch came in and started firing people left and right, eliminating product lines, getting into finance, worrying about the stock growth."

"Fast forward to today where GE is now three separate companies: Healthcare, Energy, and Aviation. Jack Welch pretty much single handedly broke down a company that was started by Edison and made some of the greatest technological advancements in the last century. That man is the worst."

- girlsgirliee

Valuing What Matters

"Delivering ‘shareholder value.’ Boeing, Intel, Blizzard and Ubisoft to name a few. Companies need to deliver value for their customers instead, the shares and dividends will follow."

- Vargrr

"I think the bigger problem is that absolute refusal to believe that happy, loyal customers is better financial option. Can't think of many companies that went under because they made good products that their customers wanted to buy."

"Because that s**t happens at every level of business. From the little LLC to the private corporations to the publicly traded companies."

- ThisIsMyCouchAccount

Doing One Thing, And Just One Thing, Well

"No one listed Xerox? Sticking with copiers and not those computer thingies?"

- BenPanthera12

"At one point Xerox was cutting edge computer technology; a lot of the innovations that went into the Mac were copied from Xerox."

- Alexis_J_M

No Improvements Needed

"Fordson farming company in the US failed, because Henry Ford was stubborn as h**l! It's a niché topic, but since I do own a Fordson, so let me explain:"

"There was a war going on in the US between companies building farm equipment and "traction engines", which were essentially highly-specialized, gas or wood powered machines. Due to the machines all being somewhat specialized, repairing them was an issue since all the parts were specific to that one model, and most of them were only good for one or two jobs, which made them not as profitable."

"So here comes Henry Ford, who developed the Fordson traction engine til 1907, by the same principle that they built the Ford Model T, using existing and automotive parts, making production and assembly easy and fast. the result was a cheap, affordable allround tractor for the average farmer. It was making all the other manufacturers sweat, with the original Fordson being an extremely useful and easy to repair traction engine."

"Fordson was selling a lot of the original fordson as a result. (Fun fact on the side: it was called 'Fordson' because the Ford Motor Company board did not like Ford's idea, so he founded the Ford & Son company. Fordson)."

"Anyway . . . the original Fordson was causing the other companies like International and Deering problems, and they had to step up their game, because Fordson was still selling a LOT of tractors. The bad business decision though?"

"Henry Ford refused to further develop the Fordson tractor. he thought it was already a near perfect machine and did not need improvement. The Ford&Son LTD then failed in 1928 in the US having only produced this one model for about 20 years. Henry Ford ran the Fordson brand bancrupt because he refused to adjust to the changing market, when other companies had caught up and produced better tractors than the original Fordson."

"(Another fun fact: the Fordson brand survived in the UK though, producing different, new models until 1965 under the Fordson Farming brand as part of the english Ford Motor Company. I, myself, own a beautiful 1958 Fordson 957E Dexta Diesel. in the 60's the Ford Motor company fused the Fordson brand into their Ford agriculture brand.)"

- GuyFromDeathValley

We All Miss Blockbuster

"Blockbuster’s decision not to pursue streaming services."

- Shortcuttrash

"They actually tried to start their own streaming service. They even had Enron investing in it. However, the technology wasn't there yet and it failed. Then when Enron fell apart, it dragged Blockbuster down with it. So it wasn't just their streaming failure that broke the company. It partly had to do with the shady workings of Enron."

- HoraceBenbow

It's incredible to think about how big of a change can come from what seems like a small decision. But sometimes, the smallest decisions make the biggest impact, especially when it comes to customer relations and customer satisfaction.