[kenesom1]

If you no longer want to run the business, there isn't much to lose by offering it for sale or letting someone else manage the affairs indefinitely while you pursue other opportunities.

It's profitable and worth something to buyers. The engineering team alone would be worth a fair amount per head in terms of recruitment. You can delegate the leg work to brokers if you don't want to spend that much time on an acquisition.

It's not important to have an exit per se (though nearly any transfer of assets can be called an exit). The experience of running a business (a profitable one at that) is a positive signal to future partners/investors.

[bitbotbit]

Handing off day-to-day management: We explored this option in depth by speaking with as many founders as possible who had attempted this. Ultimately, the consensus was that unless you have an employee who is positioned to and interested in increasing their role, finding a good candidate to assume leadership is extremely difficult (a 9-12 mo proposition). Then there's still pretty decent odds once on the job they'll fail or leave, forcing the founders back into the business. When the team is so small, it seems the founders cover so much surface area its difficult to replace them. Of course, this could be our failing to train, delegate, and operationalize the business.

Thanks for the perspective, really appreciate it! Good to hear experience of running a profitable business may be sufficient.