Last week I talked to an entrepreneur who’s shuttering his start-up after several years. The company is at breakeven, but it’s not growing. He shared with me what he’d learned from his journey.

The market is the main thing he wishes he’d paid attention to in the beginning. The market he entered looked good at first glance because it’s large. However, it’s slowly shrinking, and shrinking market forces have made it difficult for him to acquire customers because he has to steal market share from other companies. He now recognizes the huge role the market played in his company’s trajectory, but he didn’t understand it until he was in deep. If he knew then what he knows now, he wouldn’t have started a company in that market.

Markets matter a lot for entrepreneurs, especially if they aim for outsize success. Growing markets are good, and new, rapidly growing markets are the best. This founder is talented, but that wasn’t enough to overcome a shrinking market. He recognizes this now and says his next company must be in a growing market.

Shuttering a company isn’t ideal, but it happens often in entrepreneurship. This founder gained valuable wisdom from his first company. I’m excited to see what the next leg of his journey looks like.