What it feels like to take up a job after starting your business

We often celebrate the leap. Leaving a job to start something of your own. But there is another story that doesn’t get told as much. What it feels like to take up a job after you’ve already begun.

In my Slice of Startup Life conversations, Nadeem Jafri of Hearty Mart shared one such phase. When his business wasn’t yet strong enough to support his family, he went back to a job while someone he trusted looked after the business. “This return changed everything,” he said. “I was back in the grind, but my mindset was no longer the same. Deep inside, I still felt like an entrepreneur… this tug-of-war made things difficult both at work and in business.” Today, Hearty Mart is thriving. That chapter was part of the journey, not the end.

For some founders, taking a job feels like closing a chapter. Locking the office one last time, and the next week walking into another with a new badge and a new desk. At first there is relief. Later, a kind of restlessness.

For others, it feels like carrying two lives at once. The job in the day, the startup at night. Emails at midnight, supplier calls in the gaps, weekends that blur into work. Tiring, but also a way of keeping the dream alive.

Some take a job as a way forward. A chance to learn, to meet people, to prepare for whatever comes next.

And then there are founders whose startups get acquired or acquihired. They continue with their teams and products, now inside a larger company. It brings pride in what has been built, but also a shift, learning to fit into new structures while carrying the same founder spirit.

Sometimes it feels like closure. Sometimes like juggling. Sometimes like progress. A founder trying to honor the responsibilities of today while keeping alive the possibility of tomorrow. All of it is part of what it feels like to take up a job after starting your business.