You're Tired!
Get some rest...
Over the past few months, I’ve spoken with some founders who were looking for an exit strategy for their companies. In some of these conversations, the energy was palpable. And low. They’re exhausted.
As a founder, I strive to make these conversations a space of vulnerability. They need to open their hearts and share with me what they’re really feeling. But I leave with the certainty that the same low energy they transmit to me in a conversation like this is what they transmit to a potential acquirer
.
What I tell them doesn’t have much to do with selling the company, and at the same time it has everything to do with it: you’re tired.
Of course, after a few years on the journey, a founder gets tired. I experienced that firsthand for over a decade. What a stressful and exhausting journey entrepreneurship is. But if, as founders, we don’t take care to regain the energy to keep going full steam ahead, well, the best we’ll be able to achieve is handing the company over to someone who pities us.
Emotional Contagion
Emotional contagion is a condition studied by Elaine Hatfield, in which we, as human beings, tend to automatically “mimic” expressions, vocalizations, postures, and movements. When someone is in a public situation, such as giving a presentation, the attention focused on that person makes this effect even stronger. Thus, our audience reflects our emotion in the way we express ourselves and, studies show, ends up absorbing our emotion.
If you are tired and discouraged about your business, how will your interlocutor feel about it?
The exit requires creative energy.
When I came to the conclusion that it would be a good idea to write about my M&A experiences from both sides of the table to help founders, I resisted for a while. I was stuck in a belief that I would be talking about endings, about closing cycles. I have a strong creative energy and it took me a while to connect the dots.
The thing is, exiting requires creative energy. Even though selling the company might seem like the end of a cycle for you, it’s actually the beginning of something new and often even more promising. Furthermore, for many founders, the format of this exit won’t be the idealized “standard” one: cash, earn-out, goodbye, and on to the next one. It could be a merger, a union of forces, a private equity investment, or any other format that renews the cycle and keeps them energized on the journey for a few more years.
My own experience
My case is a prime example of the need for creative energy to find a way out. Six years into my journey with Onyo, my first startup, I was exhausted. It hadn’t been easy clearing the tall grass to create a new segment of food ordering: takeout orders at food courts. And finally, we were discussing an exit.
Then came the pandemic. Shopping malls and food courts quickly closed. Desperation could have made me throw in the towel, but the need to reinvent the company to stay afloat ignited my creative energy. We started exploring new service models to meet the current demand (who remembers drive-throughs?). I hired a press office to express this innovative spirit and show how we were riding the digitalization revolution that the pandemic demanded. As a result, our buyer remained interested, and we closed the deal a few months later.
Stress and recovery
Recent studies on stress are very interesting. They show that stress isn’t necessarily bad, not even for your health. It all depends on how you perceive stress. If viewed as a challenge that helps you grow, your physiology will react differently than if seen as something bad and undesirable. The first perspective, that of a challenge, dilates your arteries, lowering blood pressure, releasing less cortisol and more testosterone. The second, that of negative stress, is a cortisol bomb, with constricted arteries and high blood pressure, which ultimately harms your health. And it all depends on your mindset: how you view these challenges.
You probably chose to be a founder. Maybe you didn’t know it, but all this stress is part of the journey. Something that always helped me in these situations was looking in the mirror and saying: you signed up for this. That made me see the challenges as a rollercoaster. And I love rollercoasters!
Even though stress is seen as a challenge, physiologically, our bodies haven’t evolved to withstand the constant strain that modern times impose on us. All of that physiological response was suited for fighting or fleeing a predator encountered in the middle of the forest. But, once that danger has passed, we need adequate recovery to have the necessary resources for the next encounter with the predator.
Just as our muscles grow when we “stress” them at the gym, but then let them rest to create our fibers, the same is necessary to transform other sources of stress into growth.
Rest
The end-of-the-year message couldn’t be any other. You’re tired and need to recover to face a new year with the creative energy that new opportunities demand. Disconnect as much as possible. That’s the best investment you can make in yourself.
There’s another phenomenon from behavioral science that you can use right now. The fresh start effect generates renewed energy at the beginning of a cycle to pursue new goals and accomplish new things. It’s the fuel for New Year’s resolutions and the renewal of your creative energy.
There’s only one way to get someone interested in your business: the emotional contagion of your own interest. So, truly dedicate yourself to recovery and ride the ‘fresh start effect’. 2026 could be the year of creation, new revenue streams, new areas of operation, new partnerships, and consequently, a lot of interest in your business.