After selling the company: who am I now?

Why does a good sale feel empty?

A case I meet in one form or another: someone built a software company in Baar over fifteen years, sold it to a US group last spring, and the price was right. The lawyers, the M&A adviser and the tax specialist were done the day the money arrived. The former management team now reports to someone in Boston. And on Monday morning he sits in a quiet house in Zug with a full bank account and nothing that needs him.

This is not a sign that the sale was wrong. It is the normal response to the end of a role you held for a long time, often most of your working life. The University of St. Gallen and UBS put it plainly in their release of 28 May 2026: whoever has built a company over decades hands over not just wealth, but often identity, status and influence as well. Thomas Zellweger, who leads the study, adds that some people cannot let go of their life’s work. None of these three were in the share purchase agreement. They are gone all the same.

If you moved here for the company, there is a further layer: your network in Switzerland was mostly the company’s network, the board, the bank, the customers, the Thursday evening with the other founders. When the company goes, so does most of the circle. The people who are left congratulate you. Saying out loud that someone who is financially free misses Monday morning sounds ungrateful, so most people do not say it.

What exactly is gone? It is not the money

Money was rarely the problem, and it is rarely the answer. What leaves with the company can be sorted into three things.

The role. For years, the answer to “And what do you do?” began with a company name. Now it begins with “I used to”. That is a different sentence, and you notice it at every dinner in Zug and every school event in Zürich. The role also carried small things you only see once they are gone: the parking space, the way people waited for your call back.

The rhythm. The company structured your week: Monday leadership meeting, quarterly close, the trade fair in spring. Your calendar was full, and other people filled it. Now it is empty, and you have to fill it yourself. Many people underestimate how much of their energy came from that rhythm rather than from themselves.

The conversations. The people you spoke to every day – your CFO, your key accounts, your fiduciary (Treuhänder), your banker – were bound to the role, not to you. That is nobody’s fault. But the conversation stops exactly when you would need it most, and if your circle outside work is thin, there is often nobody to pick it up.

One figure explains the mechanism. In the UBS/CFB-HSG short study of January 2026, based on 401 Swiss SME owners surveyed in September 2025, 76 per cent see their company’s success as strongly bound to themselves or to the managing director. Whoever carried the company like that was also carried by it. When one goes, the other is missing.

What do Swiss figures show about the years after a handover?

The University of St. Gallen and Credit Suisse surveyed over 150 companies, including large ones, about their succession in March and April 2022. Three findings from the release of 1 September 2022 matter for the time afterwards.

The news agency report on the same study (AWP, 1 September 2022) adds two figures that are not in the university’s own release and should be read with that caveat: around 11 per cent still work more than 40 hours a week in the business two years on, and 30 per cent of outgoing owners cannot detach from the role, in the judgement of their successors.

Two limits apply. First, these figures cover handovers of every kind, not only sales to third parties; if you sold to a group or an investor, the door usually closed faster and for good, which makes the gap sharper, not smaller. Second: the often-quoted claim that most sellers regret the decision within a year has no traceable primary source; I do not use it. The Swiss data show something more sober: for many owners the role does not end on signing day but months or years later, and few are prepared for that.

Which three questions are worth settling before you start the next project?

The temptation is to fill the gap quickly: a board seat, a stake in a friend’s venture, a foundation, an angel portfolio, a house in Ticino, or simply moving back. Some of it will be right. But what you accept in week ten out of emptiness is not necessarily what you would have chosen in year two. Three questions first.

1. Of what is gone, what do you want back, and what not? Go through role, rhythm and conversations one by one. Most people I talk to miss the rhythm and the conversations. They do not miss payroll, bank covenants or personal liability. That is a different starting point from “I need another company”.

2. Which requests are coming your way now, and whose need do they serve? After an exit, many people call: the wealth manager with a mandate, an acquaintance with a round to fill, a founder who wants an adviser. Each request makes sense for the person asking. Whether it makes sense for you is a separate question, and nobody but you will check it.

3. Who is allowed to contradict you, now that nobody has to? In the company, people contradicted you out of duty: your CFO, your chair, your auditor. That duty ended with the sale. Who takes it on the next time you make a decision with six zeros, especially if your oldest friends are a flight away?

A practical addition: set yourself a date before which you sign nothing substantial. Not because speed is wrong, but because emptiness drives speed, and that only becomes visible some months later.

When is this not a question for a conversation, but for your GP?

The emptiness described here is a normal response to a large transition. It can be sorted and answered. But there is a point at which a conversation is no longer the right thing, and you should know where it lies.

If low mood lasts for weeks, if you have not slept through the night for some time, if things that used to give you pleasure have become indifferent to you, if you withdraw or drink more than you used to: that belongs with your GP first. Your doctor rules out physical causes and, where needed, brings in a psychotherapist; there are English-speaking GPs and psychotherapists in Zug and Zürich. In an acute crisis, call the Dargebotene Hand on 143; in an emergency, call 144.

I do not diagnose and I do not treat. Whether an emptiness has become something that should be treated is for a doctor or a psychotherapist to judge, not me. Sparring assumes that you are able to act; how sparring differs from psychotherapy is set out in the FAQ. If it becomes clear in our conversation that you need something else, I will tell you openly and help you find the right place.

What sparring after an exit does

Sparring is a conversation between two adults: sixty minutes, at your home, walking by Lake Zug or Lake Zurich, or online, in English or German. No programme, no exercises, no grief model with stages. I have never sold a company, so I ask rather than compare.

What we do: take the three things – role, rhythm, conversations – apart and look at each one; test the requests on your desk for the interests behind them; check the assumptions behind “I have to build something again”; and at the end write down what you will do next, or deliberately not do yet. One conversation is often enough. There is another only if you want it.

What I do not do: invest your money or advise on it, which belongs with your bank or an independent fee-only adviser. No tax or legal advice on the earn-out or the holding structure. No therapy. And no decision taken for you.

Confidentiality is a written commitment, including the fact that we know each other. It has three limits: a legally binding order from a court or authority, an acute danger to life and limb, and a child’s welfare. I have no professional secrecy of the kind doctors and lawyers have; what applies is set out in Is coaching confidential in Switzerland? What the law says.

The fee is fixed and depends on the format and the length of the conversation, never on who you are. I tell you what it is in the confidential conversation – before the first session, not after. The 20-minute confidential conversation is free; travel is included within 60 minutes’ drive of Wetzikon. If the sale is still ahead of you, Sell or keep the company: the questions before the numbers is the better starting point.

In short

Feeling empty after a successful exit is common, and it is not a sign that the decision was wrong: with the company go role, rhythm and conversations, not just equity. Swiss data show that for many owners the role does not end on signing day but months or years later, and that few are prepared for it. Before you fill the gap with the next mandate, it is worth settling what exactly you miss and who will contradict you from now on; if low mood lasts for weeks, see your GP first.