Title: Hi HN,<p>Using a throwaway account because there&#x27;s a lot to lose from speaking about how I feel.<p>I founded a company several years ago. Fast forward to today and we&#x27;re profitable, growing steadily, debt free and are about to be acquired (there are LOIs on the table). You may ask what the problem is? Well, the problem is that I&#x27;m supremely unhappy.<p>Each morning for the past couple months, my first thought has been &quot;What could today be like if I didn&#x27;t work here?&quot;. I drift off into exploring what it would be like to work at Wal Mart, or the construction site outside, or as a bagger at a grocery store. It seems so stress free. Then, my phone starts ringing for the day and I&#x27;m snapped back to reality. This morning, I locked myself in the bathroom with the shower running (don&#x27;t want wife to know) and cried my eyes out. I haven&#x27;t cried in many years. It felt great, but only for an hour.<p>So, from my (possibly skewed) point of view, I have 2 options:<p>- Quit, which effectively kills any acquisition and likely the company as well<p>- Suck it up and work on the same thing for 2-5 more years<p>I&#x27;d been mulling over a third option (hire someone to do my day-to-day), but don&#x27;t know how to make it work. The product is just too complicated (tons of domain knowledge required) for someone to come in and take over. Additionally, the product just isn&#x27;t that interesting (glorified CRUD app) and it&#x27;s been hard to retain developers.<p>Please tell me I&#x27;m missing something! Maybe I&#x27;m just being ridiculous- it&#x27;s getting hard to tell. Is it common for a Founder to go through this train of thought before an acquisition? Is there a trick to convince yourself you want to keep doing this? Maybe I&#x27;m suffering from some kind of depression and need drugs.<p>Any advice appreciated.<p>- A founder in pain
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