You're working harder than ever, but the business feels fragile. You hired good people, but they still need you for everything. On paper, it looks like success. In reality, you're the only thing holding it together. This is founder dependency.

By 2022, I was working 55+ hours a week. Not because I loved it. Because if I didn't, things fell apart. Everyone told me to delegate more, take a holiday, hire a COO. None of it worked. The problem wasn't my workload. I was the workload.

I sold my agency in 2023. Not because it was failing. Because I was. Every decision still ran through me. My team would wait for me to break the silence. I called it collaboration. It was dependency.