Ask HN: I don't want to be a founder anymore

OP, sounds like youre experiencing some real burnout. It's OK, it happens to a lot of people. Couple things to think about.

1) Are there ways you can keep going but change something to help? Going to see a therapist? Taking a short break? Talking about what's going on with your family? When you're stressed it's hard to remember all the support structures out there.

2) You need to ask yourself what is it worth to stay where you are (from a financial point of view). Is it worth a big payout in a few months to a year? Getting acquired is a good way to earn a big pile of FU money quick - and that will buy you all the time to relax and recoup that you need.

Do what you need to do to get better, and dont trash what youve worked hard to build! You can do it! Hope to see you post your success story a few months/years from now!

To be honest, I think all founders are in some degree of pain. I mean, I say that hoping it will make you feel a little better, but it certainly won't solve any of your problems. For me, knowing I can quit whenever I want helps. I mean, I would literally quit and move on if things got too bad. There are plenty of opportunities. But as it turns out, either my pain tolerance is pretty high, or it's never gotten bad enough -- probably out of sheer luck.

To me, your situation is straight forward. This is what you're missing. Well, two things.

#1. You are burning out. Pretty standard, frankly. And anything could cause it. For some it's the mid-life crisis. For some it could even be diet. My mother took pills that caused night terrors. They stopped when she changed medication. The typical entrepreneurial cause would be "lost your passion". That thing that got you motivated before you went to work is no longer there. Your entrepreneurial mojo is gone. But of course, that makes for a good narrative, but in reality it could be anything. Even just plain fatigue.

#2. I'm not sure how conscious entrepreneurs and founders are of this, but if you're a fan of first principles, you should be a fan of this one.

An entrepreneur is someone that creates jobs. Though we can define it many ways, ultimately the core competence of an entrepreneur is in their ability to grow a company beyond just themselves, and... move on.

So a successful entrepreneur is either serial - moves on from startup to startup, or is monolithic - they build one business but with multiple departments under one umbrella (a la Amazon or Microsoft or Apple, but head count still keeps growing).

So #2 is your third option. This is what you need to do.

> don't know how to make it work

Figure this out, just like you did everything else.

> The product is just too complicated (tons of domain knowledge required) for someone to come in and take over

Simplify and document until you're out of paper, then train someone.

> isn't that interesting

Doesn't matter. Money is interesting. If they're being paid for work they agreed to do, it's just a matter of finding a professional worker.

The thing about your third option is, at least to me, it's the obvious final step. If you're looking to get acquired successfully, then you are looking to be replaced, no? And the hurdles for your third option are exactly what would turn off anyone looking to take over. So for your own sake, and for the incoming new boss, you need to continue on with your third option.

Anyway, hope that helps!

I'm a little late on this one but I'd echo what many others here have said, find a way to push through to the sale and then talk with the board to first, distribute your workload and/or define an exit strategy.

You're essentially sitting on a lottery ticket and when it hits, you'll have a heck of a lot more free time.

Just looking at this from another perspective, I tried running a contract programming business for a few years that sucked up my life and eventually put me in the hospital at age 30. That business never consistently made money. Contract programming is very much a peaks-and-valleys experience and once you experience that for long enough you end up working like that. You kill yourself on the peaks in hopes to not experience the valleys. When it was over I was so happy to have a 40 hour a week job...it's a vacation by comparison.

Consistency is the key. If you've got something that is generating a steady income, enough that it's profitable enough to be acquired...then it's on you to scale yourself down.

It's also within your ability to do so. I see that you've cited domain specific knowledge. All knowledge can be learned and taught. You might not be able to hire somebody off the street like that, but you can most likely hire a few people and delegate. If the work isn't interesting, then you need to find a way to enhance the experience for people working there. Make the hours creative or the opportunity unique. See if you can find ways to let people experiment or add their own flavor to it. If it's wood-chopping dull, then maybe those creative efforts are better focused on automating the day to day?

Wrote about my experience here if it helps:

http://www.brightball.com/articles/what-exactly-happened-to-...

If the third option of hiring someone to do your day to day really was impossible, this would never end. I would strongly recommend getting someone to come on board and start trying to take off some of the load / get up to speed. It might take a long time but either you're going to quit and ruin it anyway, it's going to kill you and that'll ruin it anyway, or that has to happen eventually. Start now. I get why it's hard: attracting someone who's committed, getting the incentives right for them to not feel the same way in 2 years, etc. But it's really worth focusing on attacking those specific issues as soon as you feel up to it. Even if the person just takes over some QA work / automation / simpler features and fixes, etc. Doesn't necessarily require an unreasonable amount of domain knowledge but if it frees up a couple of hours a day for you, you could take a hike in the mornings and stop feeling like crying about what you're not experiencing every day (or whatever it is you'd love to do instead of work).

More immediately - it sounds like you need a vacation. I've been there with the whole fantasizing-about-walmart-construction-sites-and-grocery-stores but it's a dead-end in the long-run. Every job will wear on you and come with it's own set of hardship. Mentally less stressful? Possibly. But think of the very different set of people you'll interact with - possibly a huge culture shock. Think of what a bad day at work might look like at a construction site. In the rain and cold, a little physically injured, maybe having to deal with a client that's trying to screw your crew over on the contract? Probably making less money? And dealing with all the comes with? It's not much of a greener pasture once you get into it. I would bet what you're really in need of is a break and a change of scenery for a little while. If you can make that happen (and again - you need to or this is all destined for failure at some point), try that and see how you feel when you come back.

By all means keep talking to people who have been there to get input - probably a lot of us on HN. Don't take all of it as gospel, but you're definitely not the only person to go through this, and you won't be the only person to figure out a way through it.

As a founder I can definitely relate.

Everyday driving to/from the office my chest is so tight it feels hard to breath. I constantly think about my old friends that have real weekends, have time for hobbies, and get to leave their work at work.

The main reason I keep going is that I actually enjoy the work. When I take a break I get excited about going back and continuing to build the company.

Having worked landscaping/construction before starting a company, I can say I often think fondly of the simplicity of those jobs. Though when I was there I all I could think about was starting my own company.

You really need to find a way to be happy regardless of what you're doing. That may be by just cutting back on how much you are working, delegating more, and finding meaning outside of work.