I built a £3 million business, restructured it, then exited. Here’s what no one tells you about founder transitions

By Joel Lawton, Founder Transition Expert

This is the first in a new monthly column for Sussex Business Times. Over the next year, I’ll be writing about the transitions most founders face but no one talks about, the human cost of success, what happens when you try to step back or exit, and the clarity work required to navigate both. The uncomfortable truth about what it actually takes when external success isn’t enough. Let’s start with my story.

Diary entry, 18th February 2020:

“I am partying too much. I am drinking too much. The impact on my mental state lasts for days afterwards. I snap at the kids. I barely speak to Claire. But how else to release the tension and stress?”

This was my first attempt at journaling. I was 40 years old and had never once looked inward.

The prompt had been: “To make change, what do you need to leave behind?”

I didn’t stop drinking for another two years. But it was the first time I’d admitted something wasn’t right.

Reading it back shocked me. I’d followed the path society dictates: school, university, work, build a business, marriage, kids. It had been fun once. When did it stop being fun?

On paper, I had everything that makes a “successful life.”

I’d built Green Kite Inventories from scratch with my best mate in London. Seven days a week. Doing inspections, taking bookings, creating reports. It was wild. We employed a team. Launched a second company, Agent’s Army. Worked with 19 of the top 20 London letting agents. Carried out 10,000 jobs a year. Team of 100. £3 million revenue.

But life had changed. I’d gotten married. Had kids. Moved to Brighton. My needs had changed.

The money gave me choices. Material things. But at what cost?

I was waking at 3am, mind racing. Lonely. Isolated. Responsible for everything at work and home. Masking it all with drink, telling myself I deserved it.

“This is just the way it has to be.”

Why? Because change felt scary. I might lose what I had. It was counter to what the world tells you: work hard, earn money = success. Other people would kill for your life. How dare you question it?

That journal entry started my first transition.

I finally had awareness. This wasn’t a business problem — it was a human one. I’d built something impressive but lost myself completely. The business owned me. I didn’t know how to get myself back.

I thought the problem was operational. Too much on my plate. Wrong systems.

It wasn’t.

The problem was I didn’t know who I was when I wasn’t “in it.”

I committed to change. I had to work on myself, learn to be present, to remove limiting beliefs and old narratives and get clear on what I actually needed.

So I retrofitted the business to fit my needs. Worked 3 days a week. Changed my relationship with alcohol. Committed to time for myself. Built new practices and habits.

People asked, “What are you doing with your spare time?” They wanted productivity. I learned to love saying, “Nothing.”

Looking back, I was learning the power of pausing, learning to sit with discomfort and uncertainty.

This wasn’t about finding a “new me.” It was removing what was never me in the first place — the performance, the mask, the identity built on proving I was good enough.

Three years later, I exited.

Another wave of fear. Soul-searching. But I knew it was time to close this chapter.

It felt mad. The inner critic was loud: “You have a mortgage. You have kids. Other people would kill to be in your position.”

Again, societal narratives. Everyone congratulating me. Telling me it must be great to have time for exciting   new things.

Then reality hit.

No structure. No team. No identity. No routine. No community.

Huge amounts of time and endless opportunities and I had no idea what to do with any of it.

Here’s what surprised me: 

The work I’d done in the first transition saved me. I didn’t rush into the next thing. I sat in the discomfort. Getting clear on who I am, what I need, how I want to live.

Most founders either jump into the next thing or drift for years.

I did the work again.

Here’s the truth most founders don’t want to hear:

Whether you’re facing significant transition, the work is the same.

It’s not about the business. It’s about you.

Your ability to put down what’s not serving you. To unlearn limiting perspectives. To acknowledge and welcome uncertainty. To build the capacity to move forward from calm, clarity, and presence, not panic, exhaustion, and avoidance.

You can’t strategy your way through a founder transition.

I’ve never felt more like myself than I do now. Not because I found something new. But because I removed what was never me in the first place.

This is the work I do at In Your Corner, supporting founders through the transitions no one talks about. Working on the human side enables a thriving business and creates sustainable lives for founders.

Over the coming months, we’ll explore these transitions together — the challenges, the patterns, and what it actually takes to navigate them.

www.inyourcorner.co

Instagram – @_in_your_corner

Linked in – www.linkedin.com/in/joel-lawton-3194aa9/