Embracing change and reinvention in your small business

As a business owner, growth is rarely linear. There’s always time to reinvent yourself, take a step back, or try something new. ForSavor the Wild Toursfounder Angela Shen, an unexpected turn in her career path helped her uncover a new passion and redefine success as a two-time entrepreneur.

When a brand showed interest in acquiring Angela’s first business,Savor Seattle, she took the opportunity to challenge herself, professionally and personally. It was a difficult decision to give up the business Angela had built and operated for nearly two decades—but after some time away, she reemerged with a new concept that better fit her needs and interests.

“You should be a lifetime learner. If you’ve stopped or you feel like, ‘I know enough, I’m a pro at this already,’ that’s no fun,” Angela said. “I’m having way more fun today than I have had in years.”

Below, Angela shares how she made the decision to sell her business, and how she applied those lessons learned to launch a second concept that aligns with her current stage of life.

Angela’s businesses at a glance

Savor Seattle (founded 2007)

• Food tour business centered in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, which pivoted to curated food boxes in 2020
• Grew to a team of 30-35 employees that served 30,000 customers in 2021
• 卖给the Seattle-based sandwich chainHomegrownin 2021

Savor the Wild Tours (founded 2023)

• Food experiences in Washington’s local wilderness, such as mushroom foraging and oyster shucking
• Solopreneur business with just one employee: Angela
• Intimate, guided tours that serve about 200-1,000 customers a year

2007 - 2020:“困难的斗争”

Angela made a name for herself leading food tours of Seattle’s Pike Place Market, turning her small passion project into a mainstay of Seattle tourism. “I started as a one-woman show, leading tours myself of Pike Place Market, answering customer service phone calls from my car, and then ultimately growing it to be a team in peak season of 30 to 35 people,” she said. “It was an incredible journey.”

But after decades at the helm, Angela realized her passion for the role was waning. Many business owners work toward the goal ofbuilding a business that can run without them, but leading a large operation also has its drawbacks: Angela said her identity felt increasingly intertwined with the business as the public face of Savor Seattle, and at the same time, she had fewer opportunities to be hands-on—one of the things that drew her to the business in the first place.

“Was I growing professionally? Was I super fulfilled and learning new things every day? No, but it was straightforward,” she said. “I fought the hard fight to get to where I was, and I would’ve just probably kept going even though I felt like it was time for something new.”

Then the pandemic hit, decimating the city’s tourism industry. Angela pivoted the tour business to curated food boxes and became a COVID-19 success story, even raising over $100,000 for her local community—a story Angela shared onone of the first episodesofBehind the Review, Yelp & Entrepreneur Media’s weekly podcast.

Rather than rebuild the tour business post-pandemic, Angela made a decision to protect herself and her team. In 2023, she sold Savor Seattle to another local founder, who ensured employment for the entire staff. It was her way of ending things on her own terms, she said: “If I didn’t do it and I waited for something else to happen, I would regret that. I can’t live with the price of regret and [not] being able to take care of my team.”

2021: The catalyst for change

Making the jump from the comfort of a 17-year-old business to the unknown wasn’t easy. “The day [the sale] became official, I felt this huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders, but then I also massively ugly cried the same night,” Angela said. “I was mourning this incredible loss, even though I was relieved. It was my first child—it will always be.”

However, the separation had an unexpected benefit: For the first time in her life, Angela said she had time to explore other interests, invest in hobbies, and enjoy quality time with her family. It was also a chance to reinvent herself and discover what she truly wanted out of life—something entrepreneurs rarely get in the midst of running a business.

“It really put the world into focus for me that at this stage of my life, I don’t want another career or job that is going to consume me in the way that Savor Seattle did,” Angela said. “It was an incredible journey and ride, but I just didn’t want that weight anymore.”

最重要的是发现,其中一个爱好的天使a tried during her break—mushroom foraging—ended up becoming the spark for her next business. Foraging in Washington’s wilderness reminded Angela of why she first fell in love with the state. Once again, she began plotting how to share that experience with others through her new venture: Savor the Wild Tours.

“I love seeing people’s eyes just absolutely light up because they cannot believe that they’ve lived in Washington their entire lives and have never, ever shucked the their own oyster from a beach, or they’ve never been in a forest that is like emerald carpets of moss for as far as I can see,” Angela said. “It’s the stuff that you read in fairytales and you’re like, ‘This ishere.’ I want people to walk away with that sparkly look in their eyes that they’ll never forget.”

2023: Redefining success as a two-time founder

Starting a second business allowed Angela to reassess her approach and redefine what success looks like as a solopreneur. When she came back to the Seattle food scene with a new business in 2023, it was with a clearer sense of purpose, work-life boundaries, and personal fulfillment.

With Savor the Wild, Angela said she’s able to focus less on profits and more on providing intimate, quality experiences: “It won’t be 30,000 [customers] a year like we did before, maybe a couple hundred, maybe even a thousand. That personal touch and that impact that we have is so much deeper, and it makes me happy. That is a marker of success that never was part of the equation before.”

Also part of the equation? Compartmentalizing work from her personal life toavoid stress and burnout. As a one-person operation, Angela is able to run the tours on her own schedule, allowing her to spend more time with her family and work on other business ventures, such as business consulting.

“I was lucky as an entrepreneur to have started a successful business early in my career, so I have this privilege now of not having all of that pressure on me to say my success in life is defined by this one business,” she said. “I feel really proud of that, and my kids got to see that, and I think now it’s about showing them and myself that I’m capable of more.”

The best version of me in the world, the most effective version of me in my business means taking a little bit of time just for me every day.

—Angela Shen

Another important pillar of Savor the Wild isdiversity and inclusion. She makes sure every customer feels welcome at each experience, no matter their background. “I don’t really look like your average mushroom forager. Most people I encounter in the woods look very different,” Angela said. “As someone who is of minority background and had to deal with adversity to get to where I’m today, and will continue to deal with it, I want to make it easier for others to come into this space and to do so in a way that feels safe and welcoming.”

Savor Seattle remains a foundational part of Angela’s journey, but she has no regrets closing that chapter of her life. As an entrepreneur and forager, Angela encourages other business owners to embrace change when it comes. “The only way to know definitively whether there’s something there—if it can work or not—is to just try it,” she said.

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These lessons come from an episode ofBehind the Review, Yelp & Entrepreneur Media’s weekly podcast. Listen below to hear from Viet, orvisit the episode pageto read more, subscribe to the show, and explore other episodes.

Photos of Savor the Wild Tours from Yelp