The Small Business Administration reports that roughly 50 percent of small businesses fail within their first five years, yet the more harrowing statistic is found among those that survive. Of the businesses that remain operational after a decade, fewer than 20 percent are ever successfully sold to a third party. Most founders do not build an asset; they build a sophisticated, high-stress cage that requires their constant physical and mental presence to function. The business is not a machine that produces wealth, but a mirror that reflects the founder’s personal exhaustion.

In my four decades covering the London Stock Exchange and the mid-market mergers and acquisitions scene, I have watched hundreds of entrepreneurs reach the point of burnout only to realize their "empire" has a market value of zero. They have spent years optimizing for personal control rather than institutional transferability. When the founder is the primary salesperson, the chief problem solver, and the sole keeper of the company’s institutional knowledge, the business is effectively a job with expensive overhead. It lacks what private equity firms call "exit velocity"—the structural momentum required to move from a private struggle to a liquid asset.