Every entrepreneur wants the following things and selling your company doesn't change them. You want to be …
- Solving a problem that makes the world better
- Working with people you like and respect
- Free to be creative
- Hitting milestones and making progress
- Challenged and learning
All those things can be achieved within the context of running your own business. If those are not the priorities that you want to achieve, though, perhaps you should not pick a career in entrepreneurship!
Other equally valid priorities:
- Raise a numerous family
- Live a peaceful and happy life
- Be an artist
- Take over (some part of) the world! - through money, power, or other means
- Push the boundaries of human knowledge
- Teach people something of value
And so on... While some of those are achievable within the context of entrepreneurship, if the goals Ryan mentions are not high on your priority list, you may wish to consider doing something else!
Enjoy the adventure that you're currently experiencing and realize the daily highs and lows are what actually make your life meaningful.
Of course, as one of the commenters puts it:
I always figured that if you sell one business then at least a part of that would be funding the next one. A significant part of starting a business should be because you love what you're working on, when you sell up it'd get boring very quickly without a large project to work on and nurture.
If you read this far, you should follow me on twitter here.
