My 18 yr old daughter’s business got terminated.
This is what happened.
Leyla has been selling books on Amazon for about six months.
She’d invested real money, real time, and in December….got real results.
Then a stranger claimed one of her books was theirs.
That was enough for Amazon to shut everything down.
Immediately.
All her books – unpublished
All her rankings – gone
Over €9,000 in pending royalties – frozen
Six months of work.
Wiped overnight.
She was devastated.
We got a lawyer involved immediately.
Built the case. Sent the right messages.
And then we waited.
For a month, Amazon responded with the same short automated line:
“We stand by our decision. Your account has been terminated.”
No human review.
No conversation.
Nothing.
This reminded us of something, brutally and directly:
You are always building on rented ground.
Amazon’s platform. Amazon’s rules. Amazon’s call.
We knew this in theory.
Now we felt it.
The second thing, hire a professional who has played this game before.
Don’t try to navigate someone else’s system alone.
Just follow their instructions and trust the process.
It pays. Every time.
The hardest part of that month wasn’t the legal battle.
It was staying positive when the outcome was genuinely uncertain.
High stakes. No guarantees. No timeline.
But uncertainty is part of being a business owner.
At any age.
The entrepreneurs who last aren’t the ones who avoid hard situations.
They’re the ones who stay calm and collected inside them.
Account reinstated. Royalties incoming.
Rankings? She rebuilds those from scratch.
No bueno. But we move.
And the final thing I told her:
If your business is going to take a hit (and every founder faces a version of this eventually), better it happens at 18.
No mortgage.
No employees depending on you.
No other responsibilities.
Just a lesson.
Learned young.
Learned hard.
And one hell of a backstory for whatever she builds next.
I’m proud of how she handled it.
📌 What’s the hardest business lesson you learned?
PS: Enjoy this?
Ready to build your own Epic Life?
Join my community of subscribers to the Epic Life Newsletter here> https://robin-coenen-newsletter.kit.com/53c375a1b4