
Tell HN: I want out - canileaveplease
A few months ago I quit my job to pursue the &quot;bohemian&quot; life style. After reading blog post after blog post of programmers leaving their day jobs and travelling, the idea slowly took over my mind until one day I just did it.<p>Originally I started my company with a very close friend, and it was great. We decided we can&#x27;t be cold calling all day and getting contracts, so we brought a business guy.<p>It&#x27;s been three months now, we have employees, many clients, and my phone is going off with texts every 5 seconds.<p>I have never felt so much anxiety in my life. This is the direct opposite of what my goal was. I don&#x27;t want employees. Or a company. At all.<p>If I leave, everyone will hate me. I was the one that painted the vision, the direction, did most of the work. I just want to earn decent money and be able to do what I want to do whenever during the day.<p>I honestly thought I was super tough and I can take this on. I actually really just want to kill myself. I so<p>Right now I&#x27;m working 14 hour days and everyone gets mad when someone tries to leave while the others are working. There is no FREEDOM. The whole point of this venture WAS FREEDOM. Beers at 2pm? Sure! Not &quot;um we have 8 pages left to design for tomorrow, nobody is going anywhere&quot; says one of the developers. This attitude, day in, day out. Always something to do, always due tomorrow. I don&#x27;t have the spine to delay my clients or deliver anything less than perfect and it&#x27;s breaking me. My developers don&#x27;t want to do anything besides work, which I mean is fucking great, but this is the flip side.<p>I can&#x27;t ditch my clients, my business partners, my friends, my employees. I don&#x27;t know how to get out. I so furiously pitched my friends to start this company, I brought them ALL into this. I hired everyone, I convinced them to jump ship from their jobs and work with me. If I bail now, every word I said, anything I did, will mean nothing.
======
patio11
You're probably overestimating peoples' reactions to you leaving. Business
owners manage to simultaneously believe the business is beyond their control
and yet hanging on their every word. They can't both be true, right? If you
left tomorrow, odds are a successful business continues, and it will be one
which wouldn't have existed but for you.

That said: what stops you from having an all-hands meeting and saying "Is this
REALLY what we want?" If it isn't, it is your business. Change it. Client
needs to be able to text you at 8 PM? Client will be assisted in finding a
more appropriate service provider. Employee feels that nobody can go home at
6? Employee gets told by his boss "Go home. It will be here tomorrow. There
are companies that pull all-nighters every day. This is not one of them."

Also: raise your rates.

~~~
ixmatus
"Raise your rates" is excellent advice and, OP, you may or may not understand
that it's actually more about psychology.

Higher rates help filter out demanding clients and also make it "worth it"
when you do get a demanding one. Higher rates helps focus you, with 20 cheap
clients you'll feel like going bonkers. With one or two high-paying clients
you'll feel focused.

With higher rates and therefore more focus you also provide better customer
service _during the day_. That will help reduce the amount of off-hour
communications (this is also a boundary thing that Patrick already mentioned,
be firm). Clients that understand that they get what they pay for and are
comfortable paying a higher rate _usually_ let you do what they are paying you
to do and only communicate on the set meetings over minutiae.

~~~
canileaveplease
My rate for each of my team members is 200+ per hour depending on what package
they purchase (more hours = slightly lower rate, less hours, higher rate). We
target corporate clients. Just it's been going so fast and been so stressful,
it's not about the money. We've gone from 2 founders to 10+ employees very
quickly.

~~~
zacharycohn
Then it could be $250 or $300/h, and you could drop a client.

~~~
pedalpete
And keep in mind, you'll want to be giving your employees a pay raise as well.
They'll know what the clients are paying. Not a 1-to-1 increase, but maybe
30%. Make sure they realize you value their work.

~~~
gus_massa
Another option is to reduce the workhours from 80hr/week to 40hr/week.

------
hluska
I was going to write a quasi-motivational post telling you to take some time
off, raise your rates, and talk with your team. But, then I read your question
over and focused on one paragraph.

 _I honestly thought I was super tough and I can take this on. I actually
really just want to kill myself._

First, you are super tough and this 'Tell HN' is proof of that. When you hit
your absolute limit, you reached out for help. That is amazing and everyone
here should be proud of you.

Second, if the anxiety is so severe that you want to kill yourself, you have a
choice. You can keep doing the same thing you are doing now. Or, you can make
big changes. If you keep doing the same thing you are doing, unfortunately,
this is only going to get worse. If you want to fix this, you need to make
some big changes.

Other commenters have suggested some good changes already. I encourage you to
follow their advice. However, my email address is in my profile. If you need
someone to talk to, please use it. I can even send you my phone number, or my
Skype ID so that if you ever need a friendly voice that likely doesn't know
you and who will never judge you, you can reach out. Alternately, go check out
[http://www.7cupsoftea.com/](http://www.7cupsoftea.com/).

I've felt this exact same way, where I was so anxious that my own death felt
like the only way out. You're going through something horrible and posting
here represents a herculean effort.

Now, this is an ugly topic to bring up and I don't expect you to answer this
on a public forum, but do you have a plan for how and when you will harm
yourself? If you do, this is a medical emergency. Please take steps to protect
yourself. Unfortunately, in most places, if you tell a medical professional
that you have a plan, you are immediately committed for observation. So, be
careful, but also take extraordinary steps to care for yourself.

I'm sorry that I don't have a solution. The best I can offer is my support.
Use my email address if you need it.

~~~
patrickdavey
That 7cupsoftea site looks like an excellent service. Are you a listener on
it? I would be interested to hear first hand how well it works.

~~~
hluska
No, I'm not a listener (yet), though I stared at the application form last
week. I should take this as a push in the right direction and become one soon!

~~~
xenonysf
Tell us your experience if you did. I am considering to become a listener.

------
skadamat
The main mistake you made was thinking that the startup life was a Bohemian
life style. Doing a startup is incredibly stressful, you have to be pretty
compelled to do it (really enjoy working on the problem, working with your
team, etc).

First off, you CAN leave the business you started if you're getting burned
out. Second off, I would try to pinpoint why you dislike working on your
company. Does the problem not interest you? You keep referring to everything
you are doing as 'work' and paint your coworkers / cofounders as your jailors.
If you're not interested in solving that problem, you need to get out or you
will bring the company down with you.

Now, you have to ask yourself if you dislike working in GENERAL. That may be a
possibility and if you still want to have the dream lifestyle you've always
wanted, I would look into freelancing part-time or starting a small lifestyle
business that pays your bills and then some but doesn't require much effort.

If you want to fix your current situation/ burnout, try googling around for
advice - [http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-04-12/how-to-
avoid...](http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-04-12/how-to-avoid-
burnout-marissa-mayer) \- and set expectations with your team on the hours you
are available as well. If you just want out, then what's stopping you from
getting out and starting over. You can't be passive aggressive about this;
it's going to be awful if you stick around, don't deliver, don't show
enthusiasm, and aren't willing to fix it and it's going to be awful when you
have to tell everyone you're leaving. Starting a company takes more stomach
than picking between these 2 decisions and you've already done that so either
of these should be a cake walk in comparison!

------
noir_lord
> Not "um we have 8 pages left to design for tomorrow, nobody is going
> anywhere" says one of the developers.

It's your company, if you want to leave on time that is your prerogative, me
I'd go pull the master breaker and shout "home time, fuck off" ;).

You sound like someone rapidly approaching burn out, you need to give yourself
some time away from a screen to try and get some perspective on what you are
doing.

~~~
andyidsinga
+1 for the master breaker.

more importantly, the hours and days of the work week are probably a key thing
cofounders should a) agree on and b) imemediatly role model as "the culture".
c) make sure new hires understand / see / feel the culture.

..someday this is how i'll get to my 4 day work week with my mythical company
;)

~~~
noir_lord
We have this insane culture where no one wants to work less hard than the boss
so everyone works as hard as the boss.

The boss not wanting to appear lazy therefore works harder still.

The worst kind of feedback cycle.

"The beatings will continue until morale improves"

~~~
tormeh
That's the best quote. I just love it. It was a Japanese marine officer, if
anyone wonders.

------
thothamon
You founded the company. So take control.

Set 6 pm as the going-home time for EVERYBODY. If something is late because of
this, that means the company should not have made commitments it can't keep
(and you should take a strong interest in not making the same mistake again).

As someone said, don't answer the phone past a certain time. Most phones have
some kind of do-not-interrupt mode. Use that. If people have an emergency, at
the very least they can call and leave voicemail.

How about bringing a refrigerator and some beers into the office? Lead by
example. If you're drinking beer at 2 pm, that tells everyone else this is the
kind of startup where drinking beers at 2 pm is OK. People who are too uptight
to deal with that will leave: let them.

It's _your_ startup. Run it the way _you_ think is best. What's stopping you?

------
epayne
Excuse me while I wax melodramatically rhetorical.

Dear CanILeavePlease,

Congratulations are in order. You have crossed a threshold that you will most
likely not understand the full importance of until much later in your life.
That threshold is named "Your limits". Crossing this threshold is a privilege
reserved for only those worthy of learning and growing.

The long and short of it is this: The world seems to love throwing more work
at competent and resourceful people. The problem is that the world is full of
work and so the competent and resourceful typically fill up very quickly to
the point of overflow and explosion.

You write about freedom. The lesson that you will learn is that freedom starts
with saying "no". Once you start saying no you will immediately start to feel
the freedom enter your body. It's very surprising how great it feels.

Lets imagine that tomorrow a client calls for a status update on their project
and they ask you if it will be done on time? Tell them "No. The project will
not be done on time." and see what happens. I can almost guarantee you that
you will feel great for the following hours. You won't feel good because
someone else didn't get what they wanted. You'll feel good because you were
able to tell someone else the truth. Bonus points: if the client is reasonable
they will respect you more than before because they now know they can trust
you. Afraid your friends and employees won't like to hear it? Bullshit. Start
saying "no" and you'll become leader that your friends and employees really
need and can respect.

It's true that some people expect the entire universe to never say no to them.
The good news is that those people aren't worth having in your life. When one
exposes themselves by trying to make you feel guilty you can be please that
now you know it and can disassociate yourself. This works in reverse as well:
You can choose to associate with people that have the proper respect for your
boundaries.

I've been there. I quit my job and started freelancing. Not even 3 months
later I'm triple booked and sleeping 3 hours a night. One morning I cracked
and my wife found me in the living room beside myself rocking back and forth,
visibly shaking. Later on that day I had to make some of the most difficult
decisions of my life. Guess what? Once I made the tough calls the liberation
began.

As you have probably figured out already, working 14 hours a day is not the
answer. Making better decisions is.

Best regards, Eric

~~~
contingencies
This is gold. I would add that - to lessen the shock to the other employees
when excusing yourself, freel free to cite _health-related_ , _personal_ or
simply _other commitments_. Clearly, a hike up a mountain or a beer in the sun
for peace of mind is well overdue, and it's perfectly understandable to
describe it under these banners. Just try not to stir others up more than
necessary, while following a path you are content with.

------
rcfox
It sounds like your company has bitten off more than it can chew. You didn't
mention how you're doing money-wise. If you can afford it, perhaps you should
stop taking new clients until you've finished your current projects, and then
negotiate more reasonable deadlines in the future.

------
Jean-Philipe
I've been in a similar situation: working 12h and weekends in a company I co-
founded, hired people and got others to work even more. I've been one that my
co-founders always doubted my "commitment" (using the very term in German)
because I didn't sleep in the office like they did. Until I we got another kid
and my wife forced me to work 6h days. I told them I needed to work less and
it worked. Wasn't easy though, but it worked. During the following months, the
company became a nicer place to work at. Don't be afraid.

------
jdotjdot
The issue isn't leaving, but abdicating your responsibilities. This is clearly
what you care about as well, when you say "I can't ditch them." While there
certainly would be something to be said for the "meaning" of what you'd
pitched if you leave, the key here is making sure that the actions you take do
not negatively influence everyone else there and the people you brought into
this venture.

I think the question to be asking is "What steps can I take to transition my
responsibilities to other people without negatively affecting the company and
my colleagues?" If you can find an answer to that question--hiring someone who
you groom to replace you, making the business more institutionalized and self-
sustaining so that you don't need 14-hour days, etc.--you'll be closer to
getting there.

It's pretty incredible how many people I see who start their own companies
hoping for freedom, and find the opposite. Responsibility often means less
freedom, and having clients and employees beholden to you means more
responsibility. In some ways, being employed can mean being more free. There
was a great article on HN recently pointing out that the true level of freedom
for entrepreneurs is likely to be found not at founding your own company, but
specifically at founding your own __moderately successful __company--once
great success comes, you have much more responsibility.

------
jaegerpicker
It sucks and it's a tough spot. I've been very close to the same situation.
I'll tell how it turned out for me, that doesn't mean it would be the same for
you but take it as a data point. In the fall of last year, my wife and I
decided to move out family to Maine. We had been vacationing there for years
and I have something of a love affair with the Ocean. It inspires me, I feel
alive, free and in touch with the Earth and my place in it when I'm close to
it. I really want to pass this gift of closeness to my children. At the same
time as we were packing to move two of my most respected friends asked me to
join their startup as a partner. I had serious reservations about moving 1000
miles away with a young family and being a partner in a startup but my drive
and ambition got the best of me. They needed someone who understood mobile
applications and could build both Android and iOS while shaping the data/app
to really focus on a mobile platform's strong points. I was deeply honored
that they asked me to be that guy. So I accepted, and worked like crazy to
make a Christmas launch. It was September when I moved to Maine. I worked
45-50 hours a day at my day job and 40-50 at the startup. All of this
closeness and betterment of our live that my wife and I dreamed of moving to
Maine? It didn't happen for me, I had responsibilities to take care of. All
the things that need to be done as part of a move, my wife handled. Spending
time with my kids, I'd make time for that after the launch. I hit my date
(barely and not nearly as well as I would have liked) for iOS, but I couldn't
take it any more. I'm tough and I HATE to back down so I pushed on, for three
more months. I pushed so hard that I passed out twice from exhaustion. Android
was up next and I sat everyone involved down and said exactly that. That I
cared about them and felt like I was letting them down but I have to change my
live because it wasn't worth it any more. We talked and talked it around. I
took my equity earned and made myself available for questions and help on the
existing apps. Today I just got back from the beach and my wife, kids and I
have never been happier. I'm still great friends with my ex-partners and I
wish them well. I had a lot of the same fears as you but the best decision I
have ever made was to talk it over with my partners and to walk away. Good
luck to you, my email is in my profile if you want someone to talk to.

------
zupa-hu
This sounds like you have several bugs in your processes. That's likely normal
as you grow, and luckily you have a built-in alarm to beep that now it is time
to fix them, it is no more premature optimization. Congratulations for hitting
that point, don't kill yourself or quit yet, fix the problem.

You get a text every 5 seconds? Where is it coming from? Clients? Introduce an
issue tracking system, or some kind of a queue, so that you can handle those
problems asynchronously.

Are those messages immediate bug fix requests? Fixing bugs should eliminate
them over time. If they are not, you are not doing it right. Introduce test
driven development, rewrite code. Often, most of the bugs are contained in few
modules of a program. Localize and rewrite (not fix) them. (Idea source: Code
Complete)

Are your colleagues pinging you for approval all the time? Introduce decision
making guidelines. Possibly with some examples how they were applied in the
past.

Clients asking the same questions repeatedly? Create a FAQ or some Help. I
made a policy for myself once to always just answer client requests with links
to the Help. If I could find answers in the Help, I linked them, otherwise I
added them to the Help first. This teaches clients to first check the Help.
One client was asking the same questions all them time. I made that client a
custom private help page with a link collection - it helped. Another I printed
a paper he could glue over his monitor on the wall because he couldn't find
anything on his computer.

For all your other issues: identify what bothers you; keep asking why it is
happening and how you could fix it. Fix one problem at a time so it won't
recur. You will have loads of free time really soon.

That said, you might as well consider raising your prices as others noted if
your current margins can't justify the effort needed to deliver. Otherwise,
you just created some new jobs that pay worse than the alternatives. In that
case, everyone is loosing and closing your company would make everyone better
off. But most likely you could add processes to handle things better. Or cut
back on 20% of the features that require most of your time, but deliver least
of the value.

Also, you should talk about the problems with your colleagues. You are better
off solving them together because it starts to build a culture of solving
these problems.

Good luck.

------
Thiz
You're doing it wrong.

Go to work at 10, say a stupid but inspiring quote of the day.

Go to lunch at 12. Then hit the course at 3.

That's how you do it. In other words: Delegate.

~~~
rexreed
Spot on. Someone once told me: "You go get the work. Don't let the work get
you." Sounds like scope and time management, delegation, and too much "work
long, not smart" peer pressure going on. Working more hours doesn't mean
working better hours.

If you truly set the vision for your company, then set it. Make better use of
time and better work/life balance part of your company's mission and vision if
that's the kind of company you want. And you'll attract others that want that
too, and repel those that don't.

------
icambron
My guess from here is that it's not some sort of deep crisis, just a buildup
of pain points that's gotten up to your neck. If you can get a few things
sorted out, the picture might turn nice and sunny, and your "but I just want
to RELAX!" ennui will vaporize. But if you don't sort them out, you'll burn
out, let everyone down, and be miserable. Remember: having a lot of clients is
supposed to be a problem you want, but you need to make sure you're equipped
to handle it.

Here's my advice from having burned out terribly and repaired it:

Take tomorrow off. Send the email out right now: "Guys, I need a personal day.
I'm sure you can handle it." Sleep in. Watch some TV for like half the day.
Whatever.

The problem is likely that you've been hill-climbing. What's the next problem
and how do I solve it? The hill gets steeper as you go up, but you haven't had
the time to find a better path up, or maybe even a different hill. What you'll
need to do is take a step back and ask, what's the problem with how we're
solving problems, and to do that, you need to hit the pause button on
everything. That's the real reason you just took tomorrow off. So after you're
done with TV...

Part of your job is to create sustainability. Working like crazy just isn't
sustainable and if you burn out, you're not likely to be the only one. Fuck
toughness; it's not even a thing. And fuck the superheroics, because people
just don't scale. You're not trying to lift a huge mountain yourself or even
with a couple of your buddies; you're trying to build an organization that
will systematically take apart the mountain and ship it off in modular
containers. How do you turn "I need to make 1000 decisions today!" into that?

1\. Delegation. Make a list: why does your phone blow up all day? "People need
me to make decisions." What kind of decisions? "Feature decisions, customer-
support decisions, technical decisions..." How can you delegate each of those?
"Well, I can make Jill my lead engineer and direct technical..." You get it.
Actually, just read this:
[http://sivers.org/delegate](http://sivers.org/delegate). You probably think
only you can make the decisions. You're probably wrong and people will
surprise you with their ability to take this stuff on, especially with your
guidance. And if they can't, fire them (seriously, this isn't optional).

2\. Operationalization. With delegation comes operationalization. You always
have to be careful with process, but you also need to create it. When a new
problem comes up, don't just solve it. Create a process for solving it and
then apply it. This doesn't have to be the all-singing, all-dancing Ultimate
Process (TM); it just has to be a way to solve this particular problem for the
next, say, couple of months. "How do we structure customer meetings?" "When do
we give them updates?" "How do we structure projects?" What's nice about
process is that it applies DRY to your thinking; the process guides your (and
everyone else's) decisions so your brain doesn't have to.

3\. Brutality. This is the hard one. A small company needs focus. Focus is at,
like, the top of the list for attributes you're after. So you need to look
carefully at the portfolio of _stuff_ you're doing and ask, "Do we really need
to be doing this? Is it essential to our existence?" You (and whoever else
really has to be in this conversation) need to answer it without blinking.
It's hard to turn down clients, or cool ideas, or whatever, but you have to,
because there will always, always be more stuff to do than you can plausibly
handle. So you have to cut out all of that stuff, and you need to do it
brutally and unflinchingly. "We're not doing that." Once you kill all the
extraneous projects, even the ones that are making you money or publicity or
whatever, you'll feel so much better.

4\. Expectation-setting. Your developers want to work really hard, but that's
actually not as great as you think it is. There's a tendency for employees in
a small company to match the culture around them, especially when those
employees are young. (I'm pretty sure that's where my twenties went.) But it
doesn't make them magical animals; they'll burn out too. It's your job to
create the environment of sustainability. That starts with your client
relationships and moves down into your development schedule, your individual
expectations for work hours, etc. You need to make the expectations explicit.
Never ever (ever!) say "whatever it takes" and don't allow your employees to
say; say, "here's what we can do", where "what we can do" fits into a
reasonable schedule with reasonable hours. Will you lose some deals? Of
course.

5\. Planning. "um we have 8 pages left to design for tomorrow, nobody is going
anywhere" is the opposite of planning. How did you get here? Well, you took on
work without planning for it. That's going to cause you all kinds of stress,
because it's crazy and humans can't work that way. Planning would have allowed
you to say, like two weeks ago, "well, we're not going to make that deadline,
so let's talk to the client and push that out." But instead, it's the day
before it's due and you're fucked. So the first thing you do, on Tuesday when
you're back is get a nice solid list of your existing commitments and see if
they fit in a schedule. They won't, so then you'll have to reorganize some
stuff and have some tough conversations about what to cut or push back or
outsource or whatever. But holy shit will you feel better when you have. Then
create a planning process going forward.

6\. Supply and demand. Do you have too many clients for you to handle? Charge
more. Seriously. The work will select itself for more value for you. If people
keep wanting to pay, keep raising your price until they don't. You'll have
less work and at least as much money.

Whatever you do, don't say, "let's just get through this last couple of things
and then we'll be in the clear". You should know by now that's wishful
thinking, and wishful thinking is, frankly, what got you into this mess in the
first place. You need to take responsibility now and reorganize your team and
process for sustainability.

------
sumeetchawla
Hey buddy,

What you need is a long vacation. I would recommend you to find the right sub-
ordinates/partners to take your place for the time being and plan a 2-3 week
trip to a place where you can relax. :)

The whole point of building a company is that different people can do what
they are best at and solve a problem. All members of an organization are a
cogs in the wheel. They all need to move together to get things done smoothly.
Being an entrepreneur has a lot of pressure but when you already have a
company set up, with employees, with business people etc, you should focus on
building strategies. Delegate more, hire the right people, apply the right
management techniques which suit your work culture. It's all about having the
right people under you so that you can just lead the company in the right
direction.

Trust me, a vacation will have a big influence on you right now and give you a
different perspective too :)

Take care and don't take any rash decisions.

\- Sumeet

------
jarrett
Have you had a discussion with your cofounders and employees about
establishing goals for work/life balance in the company? If so, what did they
say?

Realistically, I don't think owning a company will give you massively more
freedom than being an employee of one. But it does put you in a position to
enshrine freedom as a goal for _everyone_ in the company, employees and owners
alike. Economic necessity will mean absolute freedom is never possible. But in
my experience, it's very possible to have good work/life balance, flexible
hours, and a fun workplace so long as the leadership is on board.

You might also consider asking whether you're setting the right expectations
with your clients. If you're constantly making promises that force you to work
14-hour days and always be in crisis mode, perhaps that could be adjusted.

------
jroes
I don't know if you have the patience or time for it, but The E-Myth
Revisited, an old book with a cheesy name, was made for you and this
situation.

------
tehwebguy
Sounds like the machine is running mostly on it's own now, have you taken a
single day or week off yet? It might give you serious relief to step back for
a few days and see if it's still there when you come back.

The job at hand isn't killing you, the anxiety is (probably)

------
jmacd
You say "clients", which makes me think you started a services firm. That is
about the worst business you could possibly start if you truly wanted freedom.
You are always beholden to the customer.

------
sixQuarks
Sounds like you started the wrong type of business. When I started my online
business, I had 1 main rule: I didn't want to deal with clients or co-workers.
Now, I've got multiple projects that are bringing in six-figure incomes and I
have to put in about 1-2 hours of work per week as a solo entrepreneur. I walk
my dogs at least an hour every day, I work out, waste time browsing sites like
HN and reddit, and am about to embark on a year-long digital nomad lifestyle
with my wife. So, it can be done.

------
ryujo
There's a Russian designer, who owns a big studio, yet is away on expeditions
and travels for most of the year. In his blog, there's a series called "3
questions", where anyone can ask for advice.

I think one of his answers might help you
([http://tema.livejournal.com/1401690.html](http://tema.livejournal.com/1401690.html),
4th question). Here's a rough translation.

"Q: Me and my husband own a chain of restaurants we have invested a lot of
energy and effort into. We want to travel, and the question is, how can we
leave our business unsupervised for several weeks? If we go away on vacation,
we'll be worried all the time, phones in our hands. You travel a lot. How do
you both develop your business, and travel?

A: I've spent a lot of time worrying about this too. But then I noticed, that
if I'm away from the office for some reason, work doesn't suddenly stop. And
so I started traveling. There are no more colleagues, who are unable to work
without my supervision. Everyone knows, it doesn't matter where I am, because
work goes on. My advice is - build your life to your comfort. Others will
accept it as a fact. If not the current ones, then the new employees will. And
it's important to keep working. Distance is not relevant, but presence is.
Coordinating projects is presence."

I took away that employees know what to do. Being present via project
coordination, and being chained to your office chair are not the same thing.
Delegate more (most) tasks, and go travel.

------
graeme
OP, kudos for making this post. It takes courage to admit this, and self-
awareness to realize you needed to do it.

There is some excellent advice in this thread. I am just chiming in to tell
you to have hope.

Right now, this feels like the darkest point of your life. But there is a
bright side. Because your problem boils down to this: too many people want to
pay you money.

And it's really a problem. It's made your life miserable. For a couple of
months I briefly had this same problem. It doesn't sound like one, but it is.

I did what this thread is telling you to do:

1\. I raised rates. 2\. I eliminated work and clients that weren't serving my
goals 3\. I delegated work I could outsource 4\. I made processes so much work
could be handled automatically.

Before: Lots of money, horrendous stress, no time

After: Quite a bit of money, almost no stress, complete freedom of time

(I chose to eliminate most consulting, which is why my income went down. It
sounds like your income will actually go up)

I couldn't be happier with choosing to turn things around. It's totally
achievable. You can have your cake and eat it too. Your business will switch
from a burden to something that actually does liberate you.

There are several substantial responses. Read through them, act on them. Good
luck!

(And one comment highlighted something I want to add on: if you've actually
thought about killing yourself, and have made a plan – seek help. Trust me, it
all gets better.)

------
dsuth
This:

"Right now I'm working 14 hour days and everyone gets mad when someone tries
to leave while the others are working. There is no FREEDOM. The whole point of
this venture WAS FREEDOM. Beers at 2pm? Sure! Not "um we have 8 pages left to
design for tomorrow, nobody is going anywhere" says one of the developers."

is caused by this:

"I don't have the spine to delay my clients or deliver anything less than
perfect and it's breaking me."

YOU set the tone for the company, and the pace of work, by managing the
deadlines. If your style of management is just to roll over for every client,
make ridiculous promises, then foist that onto your programmers, of course
they will respond in the manner above. Because you have set the expectation
that it is feasible to deliver, and that this is how things are done.

If you want a more relaxed environment, blow the deadlines out by double, THEN
start setting expectations for work lower. Organise a company day off where
you all go off go-karting or something - no exceptions. But don't do this in
the face of deadlines, or you'll just look completely out of touch, and put
everyone else under more stress.

------
lukifer
This is not uncommon. Client work trades a single boss for multiple ones, even
if it means you get to have pizza and beers at work.

The way out is through. A smattering of ideas:

\- Take some time away, even if just a day. Yes, I know you can't afford to:
do it anyway, to get some perspective and distance. If you want to hurry up,
you must first slow down. [1] Don't forget to get a good night's sleep, too.

\- Fire the clients that create the most stress or who are questionably
profitable. Take a loss (in profit and/or reputation) if you have to. The
first thing to do when you're in a hole is stop digging. (As suggested by
others: drastically raising your prices is also a good way to separate wheat
from chaff.)

\- Don't shoulder it all yourself. Get whatever outside help you can from
friends and family, and most importantly, be open with your employees about
your circumstance. If you're upfront about where you're at, I think you'll be
surprised at their willingness to problem-solve. If not, at least you were
straight with them, and you can part ways amicably; if you put on a brave face
while bullshitting them, they're much less likely to give you some slack.

Above all, don't forget that perfection is impossible, in your craft or in
business, and you will _never_ be able to please everyone, either clients or
employees. You've got more spine than you think, or you wouldn't have started
this enterprise. Use it, and make the hard decisions you don't want to make.
You will hate doing it, but that dread in the pit of your stomach will finally
go away.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festina_lente](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festina_lente)

------
grizzles
There's some good advice in this thread, I'd definitely read it all and try
implementing whatever's appropriate.

But, let's say you decide to leave anyway. So what. It sounds like you are
reselling labor services? (eg. coding?) If so, that's a terrible business and
I wouldn't hesitate to encourage you to move on.

Your friends will understand or they aren't really your friends. For you
business partners, well that's business. You adapt and move on. A few ways of
managing the exit:

Give them plenty of lead time to find someone to replace your role.

Say you want to stop fighting fires and focus on the long term strategy of the
company as eg chairman. Cut back your hours, go live your bohemian lifestyle
and email in your wise prognostications.

If you want a better way of selling labor services, one of the best ways I've
seen is to manage your workforce like a recruiting company. Embed your coders
in your customer's companies, on fixed term contracts. I've seen this model
work really well. It's the easiest way of scaling a coder services based
company.

------
MortenK
You have a choice between re-organizing and leaving. If you decide to re-
organize, icambron's advice on this thread is really good.

But if you are beyond that point, and it sounds like you are, just get out.
Take your co-founders out for a beer and give them straight and honest talk.
Some might get disappointed, but more likely they will be sympathetic. Even if
they are not, it's their problem. While I understand the pressure, you mustn't
sacrifice your health for other peoples opinions.

You emphasize freedom a lot. As you know, this can't be found in an agency
setting, as ultimately you are at your clients' beck and call.

If freedom is your top goal, you should aim for independent, freelancing /
consultancy or potentially becoming a micro ISV.

A possible solution could be to withdraw from day-to-day management, and act
as a part-time, possibly remote freelancer for your own company. Doing what it
is you like to do for perhaps 10-20 hrs pr. week.

Your co-founders may or may not accept that, but it's an out that could work
decently for both parties.

------
anonzz9pza
>I can't ditch my clients, my business partners, my friends, my employees. I
don't know how to get out. I so furiously pitched my friends to start this
company, I brought them ALL into this. I hired everyone, I convinced them to
jump ship from their jobs and work with me. If I bail now, every word I said,
anything I did, will mean nothing.

I'm in a similar position myself. I don't think this should be a factor in
your decision making. They're adults and they made a choice.

You may feel like you let them down, but as I said they're adults, they made a
choice. It even sounds like they wont lose their jobs if you quit, and if
they're no longer interested in working there without you, they should have
time to find other positions. Even if that wasn't the case, it shouldn't be a
factor for you.

They may hate you, but they'll get over it.

So, if you need to quit for your mental well being, do it. If you feel it's
worth trying other things first, go for it, but there's nothing to be ashamed
for here.

------
relampago
You're at your wits end, you need a break. Try not to make a serious life
decision when you're overworked and stressed to the max. Clarity first - go
for a long drive, swim, run or workout. Do something to clear your mind and
push out some stress. Physical activity highly advised.

I've worked in a similar environment and even though there has been a lot of
research of the dires and productivity loss of exceeding the 40hr work week,
we still push ourselves. If you feel this way so does some members of your
team probably. The team loses if you all don't take a breather or lighten your
load. I don't know the best route - hiring more employees, take less
customers, under promise and over deliver on timetables, charge more, etc but
a conversation with you partner may help.

Google some of the research done on exceeding 40hr wrk weeks and maybe you can
find some better direction.

You can get through this. Best of luck.

~~~
relampago
Bring back the 40-hour work week
[http://www.salon.com/2012/03/14/bring_back_the_40_hour_work_...](http://www.salon.com/2012/03/14/bring_back_the_40_hour_work_week/)

------
kmfrk
Well, one thing to make sure you do is delineate your work from the rest of
the life. So, Monday to Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM (or whatever the hours), you're
in work mode, but as soon as the clock strikes 5, you turn off everything
work-related, and you should not be considered reachable, barring any
emergencies.

If that doesn't work for your co-workers, you fundamentally have an
unsustainable company, which is no more your fault than theirs.

When clients and your work make a claim for your personal time, you need to
put a stake in the ground - directly or indirectly by not responding outside
working hours.

It also sounds like you may have a problem with your planning and workflow, if
you've got e-mails and texts coming your way like a hailstorm. Since you're a
founder, you're fortunately in a position to dictate how communication and
project management works. Because no one deserves a flurry of e-mails and
texts.

------
qwertzuiopasd
you had a goal in mind, but you followed a different recipe (sales guy,
employees, real clients), now you wonder why you have the shit everbody else
has (too much work, short on time, not enough life).

to reach your goal (if its still your goal) you need definitely need a new
recipe, probably the complete opposite.

my recommendation: (it's not much, but it's what i do)

read
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ballad_of_Halo_Jones](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ballad_of_Halo_Jones)
it's a comic by allan moore about "getting out" \- its a good book and a good
book is never wasted

second: quit and travel alone (or if you have wive and kids, take them wih
you, it's less expensive then it sounds) for a few months, without your phone.
reinvent yourself when you come back. i run an agency, i do this every year
(including reading the comic).

------
mikekij
\- You don't owe anything to anybody. Leave if you're not happy.

\- If you're forced to be working 14 hour days, you're doing it wrong. You
need to hire people. Raise money. If you're so busy that you're working 14
hour days, I'm pretty sure some investor would be willing to put some money
in. Sounds promising to me.

\- You may be working on the wrong stuff. The things a founder should be doing
on a day-to-day basis at a 2-person company is different than the things they
should be doing at a 10 person, 20 person, etc. company. Maybe you can hire
someone to handle some of the things you're currently hating about your job,
and you can focus more on hiring, or product design, or whatever.

Bottom line, if you're hating what you're doing, either you're doing it wrong,
or you shouldn't be doing it. Trust your gut. Life is too short.

------
notahacker
The one advantage of having employees and partners involved with this is you
have the opportunity to delegate more

------
oomkiller
Please Relax.

Don't leave. Write down your problems, and logically develop solutions to work
on solving each of them. It sounds like you're in charge of your company. If
so, change things up so where y'all can work together to deliver a successful
product without killing each-other. If there is too much work, take on less,
and plan better.

If anxiety is an issue, there are many anti-anxiety drugs that you can use to
help control it (see /r/nootropics and/or a psychiatrist). Anxiety issues can
affect your perception in many ways, and they're often invisible, which is
what makes things seem so difficult.

Also, you may need to sit down and figure out exactly what you want out of
life, then align the rest of your goals and plans with that. Getting a good
life balance can be tremendously helpful in these situations.

------
dennybritz
I haven't read all the comments, so I'm sorry if this has been suggested
before.

1\. Check out this book:
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004IYISQW/ref=oh_d__o00_de...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004IYISQW/ref=oh_d__o00_details_o00__i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
In a nutshell it talks about how you should not sell custom services, but
instead build and document a repeatable process that can be executed without
you.

2.Be picky with your clients. It's very tempting to take on as many clients as
possible. However, some clients are inherently worth more: They are easier to
deal with (no support needed), they pay more, or they are repeat business.
Focus on these clients and get rid of the others.

Hope that helps. Good luck.

------
suzyperplexus
I think there are days I've felt this and other days when I've been that
asshole pushing everyone forward. My own advice is to take a breath, block out
1-2 hours everyday with some sort of fake meeting you've made up for yourself
to be alone, and give yourself a day a week for a makers day free from
meetings.

If you still feel like you need to leave, then do it. People can likely tell
when you're not happy. If you're convincing enough to get them all onboard ,
your shitty attitude is also probably pretty convincing in making them jump
ship. Assuming that you still want this to succeed, exit gracefully if you
have to.

------
webmaven
The simplest solution I know of is to start raising your prices. You will
gradually start to get fewer new clients, and gradually start to lose a few of
the old ones, but individually the remaining projects will be more profitable
and enjoyable, and the work volume will become more manageable, all without
having to ditch any of your clients (rather, they will be ditching you,
leaving you off the hook).

A book you might find useful is 'The Business Side of Creativity':
[http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?ID=4294978649](http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?ID=4294978649)

------
peterwwillis
> If I leave, everyone will hate me

...Which is worse than hating yourself?

> I just want to earn decent money and be able to do what I want to do
> whenever during the day

So get a horrible well-paying job at night.

> If I bail now, every word I said, anything I did, will mean nothing

Sometimes the truth is that you fucked up big time. What are you going to do,
continue to live a lie because you can't handle the idea of your friends
realizing you screwed up?

Have a heart to heart talk with them all and tell them how you feel. They
won't be happy. But it'll be better than you just not showing up for work one
day. Make a plan to get out over time so you don't screw them over further.

------
vladfr
Hi! I feel you, bailing out at this point would not be great.

This stood out for me: "This attitude, day in, day out." from everyone on the
team. This sounds great, it means that you have built a culture that sticks.

Also, it means that you can turn things around: getting people on the same
page is hard; it sounds like you only need to sit down and think where you
want to be, then shift gears and change the team's attitude towards the new
goals. If you establish common goals, it sounds like you'll be able to create
a company culture around them pretty easily.

Oh, and have fun! There is light at the end of this!

------
abootstrapper
You need to leave. I had a similar predicament before, and selling out was the
best thing I could have done.

Confide in your business partner, and discuss with them the most graceful way
for you to exit.

You're not doing anyone a service by staying. It's bad for you, and for the
business.

For your next venture, consider your goal of maximizing your free-time, and
focus on endeavors that will give you that. Personally I know I'll never be a
Steve Jobs, but I can have a beer at 2pm! :)

------
logn
In addition to patio11's advice, I want to add: give yourself 6 weeks of
vacation. Call it an unpaid sabbatical if you need to. That will adjust your
attitude, especially if you return and the business is still functioning. Be
very blunt and tell people that you're running on empty and when you return
you intend to readjust the company's attitude or if they won't change, then
your role will at least.

------
bung
Sounds like you need to talk to your project managers and review how you're
setting timelines with your employees and clients. If you don't have any
project managers, then you and anyone else in management need to do it. If
it's just you, you need to get someone help with management! You should be
able to take your team to beers (maybe 4pm instead?) scheduled every couple
weeks, barring a big launch.

------
n72
"I just want to earn decent money and be able to do what I want to do whenever
during the day."

"Beers at 2pm? Sure!"

You may want to recalibrate your expectations. I mean, this sounds a lot like
you want your cake and to eat it too. What do you consider decent money? If
you want to do whatever you want whenever and have beers at 2, you may have to
settle for a considerably smaller income than you consider "decent".

------
JacobH
If you do all of your work "perfectly" and can't do it any other way at any
expense you may just have anxiety issues. Quitting doesn't do away with it.

This entire story says to me that you are a selfless person that wishes to be
more selfish. Be selfish. It's cathartic. You don't have to go overboard, but
buy yourself pizza and don't share. Go to a movie and not invite anyone. Baby
steps.

------
mladenkovacevic
Sounds like you need a culture readjustment. Who is driving the culture right
now? As a cofounder surely you should at least have a say in it.

~~~
manmal
Yeah, I can really recommend reading "Delivering Happiness", it's an eye
opener for company culture.

------
andersthue
I went down the wrong path for a long time, and like the frog I did not notice
I got burned.

My advice is to be honest, with your self, your co founders, employees and
customers. Tell them you cannot meet the deadlines and stop working so much.

No one is angry when you move the deadline up front, only when you do not tell
anyone you cannot meet it.

And remember that if they matter they wont mind and if they mind they dont
matter.

------
nstart
A lot of the answers that people are giving have been described in one of the
best books on running a service industry business. "The Pumpkin Plan". Give it
a read. But be warned, there's tough decisions to be made. Dropping rotten
clients, firing people who will suddenly become obsolete with the lack of work
for them. You will need to be ready to make those calls.

Good luck!

------
processing
Tomorrow morning or even better tonight on group call - hey, I don't want to
be working 14 hours a day or receiving texts every 5 seconds. I'm going to be
taking action to reduce this burden (you'll be teaching someone to do your
job) over the next 3 months - I got into this for a more balanced life and
this isn't feeling balanced right now.....

------
huherto
Well, that is actually a nice problem to have.

\- Loose the clients that are problematic. Keep the good clients. Those that
pay well, help you learn, and recommend you.

\- Also, force people to follow a schedule. Don't allow people to work more
than 40 hours a week. Your business should be sustainable. 14 hours a day is
unsustainable and hurts the business. It is already burning you out.

------
matheusbn
Sometimes we think that being our own employer it's the easy way, but dealing
directly with client it isn't easy too.

I think you should reunite with your partners and express your feelings. Some
can afford to work +14h a day while others can't, and they need to understand.

Again, driving a company may can't be easy but it can't be a torture too.

Good luck!

------
hiphopyo
This is exactly why I quit freelance design as well. It's a never-ending cycle
of you having to pour all your heart and soul into making your clients richer.
And what do you get? Just a lousy paycheck.

There are way cool business models out there requiring far less work with far
higher pay.

------
ibrad
You will be surprised how no one will care when you quit. Not that they don't
care about you, but in a week it will be like you were never there.

Just imagine someone else in the team leaving and see what are the steps you
will take to replace them. It will be easy to move on

------
binocarlos
Sounds like you are doing well! Perhaps look for some grey in between the 2
extremes.

Ditching everything vs Burning out - classic balancing act of a startup innit

Running full pelt at a marathon only to hit 2 miles exhausted - time for
tortoise to take over - he actually makes it!

~~~
jacquesm
He's fairly clearly not doing well. His business is doing well.

------
based2
[http://www.festival-
cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/1000...](http://www.festival-
cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/100000816/year/2014.html) Bird people

------
martinSlovakiva
It's your dream to be free than be. Hire new replacement for yourself. Create
whatever position (CEO, Country manager etc) is needed.

Earn with no-calls enjoy your freedom. You deserve it man, it's your right and
your universe.

------
krrishd
I'd say this is quite the relevant blog post for your situation:
[http://blog.samaltman.com/founder-
depression](http://blog.samaltman.com/founder-depression)

------
Mandatum
The answer to this I would think would be to get to a point where growth is
icing on the cake, and then streamline your current business to the point you
only have to be involved for major things.

------
virtualmic
If you wish, I can help. I am changing my work of line to get more into web
development/ data analytics. I am a good manager and a fast developing
developer. :)

My email address is in my profile.

------
ntiku
The company you started with the friend was part of the bohemian lifestyle? Or
you want to quit the company you started to pursue a bohemian life style?

------
thiagoc
What about tell your friends/coworkers about your feelings? Maybe, together,
you can make changes on your current work-style to make you happy.

------
pjd7
To the OP, You need to check out this
[http://www.workthesystem.com/](http://www.workthesystem.com/)

------
Liesmith
You should probably see a psychiatrist and/or psychologist instead of asking
hackernews how to solve this problem.

------
FAITHLYRA
MY HUSBAND LEFT ME AFTER 9 YEARS OF MARRIAGE. IT WAS SO DEVASTATING UNTIL I
MEET THIS SPELL CASTER WHO SAID HE COULD DO ANYTHING ANY MAN COULD THINK ABOUT
I TOLD HIM ABOUT MY CONDITION AND HE ONLY ASKED FOR MY HUSBANDS DETAILS AND
AFTER THREE DAYS HE CAME BEGGING. WE HAVE RENEWED OUR WEDDING VOWS AND ALL
THANKS TO THE GREAT SPIRITUALIST DR LAWRENCE YOU CAN CONTACT HIM ON
drlawrencespelltemple@hotmail.com... FAITH

------
FAITHLYRA
MY HUSBAND LEFT ME AFTER 9 YEARS OF MARRIAGE. IT WAS SO DEVASTATING UNTIL I
MEET THIS SPELL CASTER WHO SAID HE COULD DO ANYTHING ANY MAN COULD THINK ABOUT
I TOLD HIM ABOUT MY CONDITION AND HE ONLY ASKED FOR MY HUSBANDS DETAILS AND
AFTER THREE DAYS HE CAME BEGGING. WE HAVE RENEWED OUR WEDDING VOWS AND ALL
THANKS TO THE GREAT SPIRITUALIST DR LAWRENCE YOU CAN CONTACT HIM ON
drlawrencespelltemple@hotmail.com

------
singingfish
I'm in an exit at the moment (key subcontractor). It's going smoother than I
anticipated so far.

~~~
sdfjkl
I'd love to hear a bit more about that experience.

~~~
singingfish
well I had some study leave organised for months, the project was going well,
and during the study leave a job came up. Now I wasn't looking, but something
came up that was local (I live in the technology boondocks) which looked
interesting. So I was already doing supervision and critical bugfixes only,
although the team was growing, partly to temporarily replace me and partly
because the project is successful. So I was on around 20 hours the first month
of study leave, two on the second month, and I think in month three I will
quietly fade away, just making sure that the main new guy understands the
reasons for some of my more superficially insane design decisions.

------
thekevan
Then don't leave. If something is broken, fix it. Don't throw it away.

------
m1sta_
Don't take another piece of work that can't be delivered lazily.

------
sharemywin
Based on your comments your pulling in close to 4-7 Million a year in revenue.
There's no reason your not pulling in 500k to 1 million a year personally. In
5 years your done. Not sure how long you stuck out your job but 5 years goes
pretty fast at that pass.

------
sbussard
Read the Bible and E-Myth Revisited

------
dmccunney
So just what _was_ your goal? You don't really seem to have thought this
through.

This is a case of "Be careful what you wish for. You might get it." You
started a company, convinced your friends to join you, and Lo! Your company
has been successful. Now you have to _run_ the thing, and you're discovering
you don't like it.

What did you _expect_?

If your company hadn't succeeded, it would be dead and gone,and all the folks
you convinced to work with you would have suffered. In fact, it hasn't failed,
and those who threw in with you haven't suffered.

This is presumably what you wanted when you started your firm in the first
place.

Agreed, you can't just bail and abandon everybody and everything. You took on
a responsibility, and it's on you to discharge it. Never mind what everyone
_else_ might think. You have to look at yourself in the mirror and like what
you see. If you cut and run, you won't.

I'd do two things. First, I'd think about what was bothering me, and I'd make
a list of what I _didn 't_ like about what I was doing, and what I'd most like
to be rid of.

Then I'd have a heart to heart talk with my coworkers. I'd _tell_ them I was
unhappy, and what I was unhappy about, and I'd ask for help. I'd tell them I
wanted time and space. That I wanted a few hours in the day when I _wasn 't_
buried under the affairs of the firm. That I needed people to step up and take
on some of my responsibilities.

I'm willing to bet you have people working with you that can take some of the
load off your shoulders. I am willing to bet there are parts of your job you
could carve out and hand to someone else. I am willing to bet that there are
people working with you who would like to grow and take a bigger role in your
enterprise.

You are trying to do too much, and burning out in the process. Delegate. Think
through just what your role currently is, and what you would like it to be.
Think about what parts of what you do could be done by others, and who in your
company could do them instead of you. Then sit down with your people and work
out a plan to make that happen.

It won't be easy. It's hard to give up control like that. It's hard to deal
with the fact that someone else might not do what you did they way you did it.
But what's important is that it gets done, and the way they do it may be
better than the way you did it. You have to be able to give your people space
to do things in their own way, and your only real concern is whether they do
it effectively.

As companies grow and add people, roles change. What people do and how they do
it changes. As the founder of a startup, your early days are very hands on,
and you probably do some of just about everything that needs to be done on a
day to day basis. As the company grows, you _can 't_ do that. There aren't
enough hours in a day. Other people must take on some of what you do, and you
must step back and let them do it.

Your challenge now is making that happen. ______ Dennis

------
j45
Getting out is as extreme as qutting your job. You can cut back gradually, or
better yet, get things running better..

I know how exactly you felt and felt the same way for several years, working 7
days a week, 12-14 hour days between getting/running/doing the work of the
business.

The only thing that changed is how I got better at managing work, and then
having the work managed.

All I can say is in my case, I did not realize I had a lot of learning to do,
and that's where a lot of time goes. I started when I was 18, now I'm in my
early 30's. There is a way out. Seek advice from others who have done and come
through what you're doing. If you take half baked advice from half experienced
outcomes, you will definitely be risking more not just with everything in
front of you but your confidence in the future. If you feel overwhelmed, it's
probably because you have sufficient growth opportunities around you and a
feeling of paralysis of doing any of them justice. You'll have to pick.

My experience was to focus on learning how to make money and build long term
client relationships that would allow me to grow. I now consult startups,
projects and high growth group.

Freedom is something you build. Freedom always has a cost. There is always a
price to be paid for getting it. You don't own a business until it runs
without you. Until then, you own a job that is hard to quit because you are
increasingly invested in it in every way.

Freedom for me, is also time, and a capacity to create and pursue interests as
much as the work I do. In your 20's, something happens called becoming well
rounded. learning to keep your increasingly efficiently ability to create into
your 30's while making sure you aren't being left behind is a delicate
balance, but it can be done. To me, wealth is time and capacity to create as I
would like.

I'm now consulting part time, and making as much, or likely more than I've
ever made. The lame adage working smarter vs working harder is not completely
true, its all about knowing strategically where to double down your efforts,
and learning the difference between a good dollar earned and a bad dollar
earned.

All isn't as bad or as good as it seems. The best advice I received from a
mentor was to never get too high or too low, savour each lesson and
accomplishment, shut up, and move on, because the great times don't last, just
like the horrible ones as long as I keep moving.

If you'd like to talk more, I'm happy to share my story of having run a
similar course to you for almost 10 years and maybe you can find something
there. Email is in my profile.

My story and experience is rather extreme and it can feel horrible to not have
a soul to talk to, or to understand you.. when being understood can feel like
a luxury. I can't say I know everything you're going through, but there is
always a way to help use tech, systems and processes to make a business work
for you, especially if you have cash flow.

Everything will be ok, you can do it, you will get better, things get better.
Things don't get better, we just get better at handling them -- it's the best
growth imaginable. You can get things running without you and remain a value
contributor.

------
unknown_other
I was in the same situation, but for about five years. I founded an agency
with a friend in pursuit of greater creative freedom, but as it happens ten
bosses (ie. clients) are somewhat more stressful than just the one. During
those five years I barely saw my kids, worked most weekends and didn't take
holidays for the last three years at all.

We were mostly working with SME's and trying to grow the company to a point
where could score some bigger clients, on several occasions we very nearly
did. We got behind in our taxes when some large projects got cancelled and
ended up taking out a bank loan secured against ourselves personally. The
quality of our work deteriorated as we took on anything and everything to make
ends meet, to pay our expanding team, hoping our big break was just around the
corner.

When I finally called it quits we were about £60k in debt, shared between
three partners. Telling our employees we had to let them go was hard, but I
was surprised at how well most of them took it (they actually felt bad for
me), to my relief all of them found employment again within a few weeks. I
kept on working with my clients myself by working in evenings and weekends
finishing everything off, it took about a year to shut down entirely, but
every month it got a little easier. Our clients expressed some annoyance but
they were mostly understanding. A couple even said that they didn't know where
they could find another agency as good to work with as us, which was
heartening.

The successful agencies I have witnessed experiencing fast growth never had
any small/medium clients; their founders worked for a larger company and took
some big clients with them, or they worked client side and their previous
employer became their first big client. Either way their initial clients were
huge and there was very little of the painful bootstrapping I experienced, so
if you don't have big clients now expect a tough slog (or a lucky break of
course, but counting on that pretty much gambling with your own time)

The whole experience cost me about £20k in debt and maybe £200k in lost
earnings over what I would have been making had I been freelancing instead.
It's been a year and a half and I've managed to pay back my debts and finally
get a mortgage on a house, that, had I not started a company I could very
nearly have bought outright by now. The time I should have spent with my kids
is lost (I fooled myself that I was doing it for them, but in retrospect
really it was more of a 'we've come this far...' mentality) but I'm trying to
make it up to them now as best I can.

My advice to you would be to freelance, as a programmer you can work all
around the world, remotely if you please and get paid decent money (We all
know guys who only work part the year, and spend the rest travelling, others
who work remotely from Bali or something). I'm freelancing now and I feel more
free than I ever did running a company.

------
nawitus
Couldn't help but be reminded of Sonata Arctica's song I Want Out.

------
Sindrome
You unplugged from the Matrix. But the reality is the matrix isn't that bad.
Good luck.

------
battani
If you want freedom, learn how to algorithmically trade Forex.

Edit: Downvote? I'm serious about this. Trading is the only activity I know
that gives you

1) income

2) no boss to report to

3) no employees to take care of

4) location freedom (e.g. can be done from anywhere)

5) relatively low starting costs

6) low starting risk (you don't need to work 2+ years to figure out if your
company will actually make money)

7) a market you know will always be there

8) an ability to be totally hands off with algorithmic trading

Most people think this is a pipe dream — perhaps that explains the downvotes.
It's not. I live off semi-algorithmic Forex trading and know many others who
do too.

~~~
bglazer
How does one go about learning this? Also what's your exposure to risk?

I've been learning a fair amount of modeling and statistics lately and
algorithmic trading has started to look a bit more viable as a side project.

