I'll lose my 'employer mindset' edge working in a company

Working in a company will demotivate me

The employees around me won't be of my calibre, I can't spend my time surrounded by them

My credentials don't allow me to get a job that reflects my true abilities, I'll be stuck doing something beneath me

Your mindset is up to you, but here are some truths to consider. Your path through work is more mobile than ever. Do great work, fix problems and boost performance, and there will be no shortage of people wanting you to solve their challenges (and let you dictate a lot of your working terms within that).

You may find that you in fact fix a damaged dopamine cycle, one of the impacts of startup burnout, whereby your brain is no longer incentivised to work hard because it loses the relationship with associated reward. There's a reason many struggling founders turn to fitness - because the control of input > output soothes them in the face of a working life that gives nothing back

Remember this switch isn't some permanent departure from your dreams of business ownership. You can use this as a temporary stage - and identify what you might want to develop and gain in yourself through the exercise. Think of it as enrolling in a school or college for 1 or more years to unlock new skills (and being paid for the privilege)

Living with a salary will help you destress immensely. Having some certainty of income makes day-to-day living so much easier. Strike up a conversation with any self-employed and employed friends and you'll soon get to this observation. Yes, when the paycheques come in with your own venture it feels that much sweeter (often when the majority of the takings are yours), but any self-respecting entrepreneur is pouring the majority of that into their business and only taking out what they need. With a salary, 100% of what comes to you after tax is yours to enjoy or invest as you please.

Entrepreneur or employee, most people make game-changing wealth through time and investments, not paychecks.

Your start-up might have been the investment vehicle of choice, but if you're serious about financial independence, burn rate and investment strategies are your much more relevant friends. Get yourself a $50k job and learn to live like you earn $40k, putting the rest into your investment portfolio. Move up to a $100k job and learn to live like you're on $60k. If you exit every month with all of your dollars accounted for, you're living fast and will fail to reach exit velocity.

Without the 24/7 burden of your business (if it was less than this, you were already going to fail), you can spend time working on smarter places and methods to build your capital generating machine. Compounding interest can mean your $10k saved from that first year could be worth over $20k with just 5% interest over 15 years. Underwhelmed after all your recent crypto gains? If you keep putting $10k in each year, by the time you reach year 15 that pot is worth $237k. If we assume you bump up the amount you put in by 5% each year with your payrises, you're now staring down $318k.

These are modest amounts and rates, you can work them much harder if you're feeling bold. For example, aim for 7% interest and increase your investment injections by 10% every year, and in 15 years you're staring at $500k.

Now if you're thinking entrepreneurially, imagine how much further your next business could go if you have this extra cash to invest into it at the start.

If you're really an entrepreneur, you'll be finding ways to level up, no matter where the money comes from. This is a great way to prove it to yourself on someone else's dollars.

Lucky you, you've chosen the right time to look at jobs. Remote work means you have the option of much more freedom if that's something you really value. However, consider the other side of the coin - having an office to base yourself from (if you lacked your own whilst starting your company) allows you to surround yourself with sharp minds, and work more aggressively towards delivering projects.

Aside from this, you might actually find you have more holiday time, not less. Provided you can learn to step away from the coal face when your holidays do roll around. Most founders proudly comment on their ability to dive in and out of work at any moment - perhaps it was a crucial pitch call in the middle of a holiday to Thailand, or that time you took a call with a VC whilst away on a sailing retreat. The reality is this means you NEVER switch off. You have incredible experiences and adventures, but have you been giving your brain the time to recharge and develop, or are you running every faster in that mental hamster wheel? Having actual paid holidays means time to completely unplug from your working life, allow your brain the time needed to unplug and engage in being present.