Approximately 5 years ago I co-founded a business. (We operate in a northern European country; it's the equivalent of an LLC, both of us have a 50% share). I'm "the technical guy", my co-founder takes care of the other half of the work (sales, account management, general management & administration).
The business is fully bootstrapped; it's a B2B (SaaS) business in a nice market with paying customers; our turnover is approximately haf a million euros per year; growth is projected to be approximately 30% over the coming 3 - 5 years at least, at which point we'll reach saturation of the domestic market (but may still expand abroad). In other words: I think it's all pretty successful, and I'm quite proud on what we achieved.
At the same time, I want out. After 5 years of working on the same thing, I'm feeling it's time for me to move on. This is caused by a couple of things:
* I no longer find my work so interesting (rather: I find it boring). This is partially caused by the changing nature of the company (more bugfixes & maintenance than building), and partially by my own desire to make the next move in my career. In particular I'm looking for an environment where I'm surrounded by people that I can actually learn from. I also have a personal project in my head that I really want to devote some time to.
* Unsatisfying in particular is that I feel that most days are spent putting out fires, rather than constructively working on the things that are important in a concentrated manner.
* The constant stress of being responsible for the technical half of the company is taking its toll on me. I sometimes worry that I'm close to a burn out (and my girl friend tells me I should worry about this more, based on my behavior). Whenever I go on holiday (not often, and much more briefly than is common in my country) I feel that things are feeling to pieces in my absence (they often are).
Ctd here: http://pastebin.com/h1rC0GPF