u/ApartObjective8818

We just hit $1.2M in monthly spend across our client accounts. On paper, the agency is flying. In reality, my account directors are terrified to make a call without me, and our overhead is eating every bit of the margin expansion we should be seeing. I’m stuck working 15-hour days auditing client dashboards and playing corporate therapist. I built a multi-million dollar prison.

For those who actually walked away from the daily operations: how did you restructure middle management so you weren't the bottleneck for every single client dispute?

On paper, the business is a massive success. In reality, I’m trapped in middle-management hell because my leadership team can't execute without my sign-off. I’ve built a profitable prison.

>To the founders who successfully stepped back to a Chairman role: how did you survive the transition phase?