Had to deal with the exact same situation, in the end I managed to sell the company, but boy were those 2 years down the drain. From now on, never again, I am

Had to deal with the exact same situation, in the end I managed to sell the company, but boy were those 2 years down the drain. From now on, never again, I am now working towards becoming a realtor. The huge difference is that people will accept to work on commission if the goal is clear and self-evident such as selling houses but won't do the equivalent (equity based compensation) if the road is paved with unknown unknowns such as building a company from scratch (or just like mine and your case they'd do it for a while before having a change of heart) With real estate at least you get to put together a team and be the leader and everybody works on commission so there is no tension and not even the chance of tensions developing. Teams seem to be longlasting as well, at least from what I could see. Seems also the most straightforward path to become a millionaire, whereas the startup thing is for people aiming for becoming a multi-millionaire or a deca-millionaire, with some low odds of becoming a centi-millionaire